Taxpayers are paying for President Obama to take a bus tour throughout swing states. 

President Barack Obama is planning a bus tour through the Midwest states. The tour is planned for August 15 through August 17. The tour will visit swing states, those identified by the MSM as states Obama must win if he is to be re-elected. The presidential bus tour will be paid for by the taxpayers. Obama will start the tour by talking about jobs and the economy. "He is very happily getting out into the country again after a very sustained period here in Washington and he looks forward to talking to folks about growing the economy, creating jobs," said White House Press Secretary Jay Carney.

Carney defended the bus tour through battleground states, but did not give details. "The idea that the president of the United States should not venture forth into the country is ridiculous," he said. Here is more of what Carney said as he defended Obama's bus tour. (from CNSNews.com)

CNSNews.com asked Carney, "Is that a campaign event or a presidential event?"
Carney answered, "Negative. That is an official event."

CNSNews.com followed, "So it is being funded by taxpayers in battleground states?" Carney responded, "He's the president of the United States."

Another reporter followed up about whether there was a political nature to the trip.
"The air of cynicism is quite thick," Carney shot back. "The idea that the president of the United States should not venture forth into the country is ridiculous."
The reporter said, "I didn't say that."

Carney said, "No, but you implied it in your question. It is absolutely important for the president – whoever that person is, in the past or in the future – to get out and hear from people in different communities."

Obama will start the bus tour on August 15th, ostensibly to talk about jobs and the economy, the White House announced. With the national unemployment rate at 9.2% and very sluggish economic growth, it will be quite interesting to hear what Obama has to say.

"Putting Americans back to work" is Obama's bus tour theme, signaling his focus on jump-starting the economy now that the debt-ceiling crisis has passed. "In the coming months I'll continue also to fight for what the American people care most about, new jobs, higher wages and faster economic growth." But try as he may, Obama alone cannot trigger new job creation. "Government can't create jobs in a micromanagement sort of sense," said Chris Edwards, an economist with the libertarian CATO Institute.

Even before official confirmation of the tour, RNC chairman Reince Priebus used a conference call to belittle what looks more like a campaign whistle-stop than serious work on the economy. "Everything the president does right now is all political," Priebus said. "He just so happens to do, be doing a bus tour throughout the Midwest which is going to be a battleground area in the election coming up in 2012. President Obama has a nose for being involved in the campaign, but not a nose for resolving our fiscal problems in this country."

Are we taxpayers surprised? Not at all! Obama campaigns, we pick up the tab. And he "justifies" his campaign bus tour by referring to it as an official trip, a jobs and economy trip. What a joke! But then, Obama NEVER left campaign mode. But that's just my opinion.