Words have consequences. And with one utterance, Barack Obama may single-handedly have destroyed the tourism business of one of the nation’s most popular tourist destinations.
On February 10, just weeks after being inaugurated and at the start of the AIG bonus “scandal,” the Marxist-in-Chief announced his diktat to corporate America:
“You can't get corporate jets. You can't go take a trip to Las Vegas or go down to the Super Bowl on the taxpayer's dime.”
True, his statement was directed first and foremost to companies who accepted (or who were forced to accept) stimulus money. But you try convincing any American corporation who heard those words that he wasn’t also admonishing them.
The mayor of Las Vegas immediately responded to Obama’s statement. On February 11, AP reported:
“That's outrageous, and he owes us an apology,” [mayor Oscar Goodman] said. “He owes us a retraction.”
Las Vegas tourism officials worry that increased scrutiny on business travel will discourage meetings and conventions—business that would be crucial for the city already suffering economically. The number of visitors to Las Vegas was down 4.4 percent in 2008 compared with a year earlier, and visits in December alone declined nearly 11 percent.
Goodman apparently had a lot to worry about, because even before Obama made this edict, his overt antagonistic attitude toward corporate executives was already having a deleterious effect on Vegas tourism. AP continued:
Late Monday, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said it had moved a three-day conference from the Las Vegas Strip to San Francisco amid what the bank called a broad review of its activities. Goldman Sachs has accepted $10 billion in federal bailout funds.
Last week, Wells Fargo & Co., which received a $25 billion infusion, canceled a planned employee recognition conference in Las Vegas after an AP story reported on the trip and the bank received criticism from Capitol Hill that it was misusing the funds.
Well, of course Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo cancelled their plans to Vegas. Why would they want to find themselves in Obama’s crosshairs and end up being another AIG? Who wants angry Obama-worshiping socialists harrassing them on their driveways like what happened to AIG execs?
But this just the beginning. Obama’s February 10 statement was just the nuclear blast. More than three months later we can still see the fallout:
El Rushbo, doing the job that the mainstream media no longer does, tracked the damage he knew Obama was about to do to Las Vegas. On April 28, he informed the 1,500+ tycoons attending the Milken Institute Global Forum:
Look at what President Obama has done to the hospitality business. Talk to anybody in Las Vegas. He's urging people not to go! CEOs are afraid to fly their planes 'cause they're going to be tattled on. So if you have this class envy that is so popular—that all we're here to do in America is get even with those who have achieved—then this administration is for you.
Sure enough, on May 5 was this update:
They’ve already scared CEOs into parking their jets. The private jet industry is in trouble. They’ve already scared people into not going to Las Vegas. Obama said the days of corporate execs getting on airplanes and flying to Vegas are over. Steve Wynn, Wynn Resorts, reported a first quarter loss. Occupancy rates, money in the casino all throughout Vegas are down. The hospitality business is in the tank. One word from Obama could fix this. “I think we need to revive the hospitality business. If you have a jet, if you want to go to Las Vegas I think you should go.” No, the last word on Obama was, days of people who have money flying to Vegas for a good time are over.
And now, lo and behold, Las Vegas tourism has tanked so badly that the governor of Nevada, Jim Gibbons, has called for Obama to meet with him and business leaders from the state. Obama has refused. Local News station KTNV [h/t Drudge] reported today:
President Obama refuses to meet with Governor Gibbons about tourism comments
Updated: May 18, 2009 05:39 PM
Carson City - The Office of Governor Jim Gibbons was notified today that President Barack Obama has refused to meet with the Governor and key business leaders from Nevada. Governor Gibbons requested the meeting in a letter to President Obama so the President could address statements he made that were critical to Nevada and have caused economic damage to convention business and tourism business in the Silver State. Earlier this year, the President told an audience in Elkhart, Indiana, “You can’t get corporate jets. You can’t go take a trip to Las Vegas or go down to the Super Bowl on the taxpayer’s dime.” That quote was seen by many as an insult to Las Vegas and as a message to companies across the Nation to stay away from Las Vegas for corporate meetings and conventions.
The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority reports over 400 conventions and business meetings scheduled to take place in Las Vegas recently have cancelled. These cancelled events translate into 111,800 guests in Las Vegas and over 250,000 “room-nights”. The cancelled conventions and meetings have cost the Las Vegas economy over $100-million, not including gaming revenue.
“I am disappointed at the hypocrisy shown by this Administration,” Gibbons said, “President Obama is coming to Las Vegas later this month for a political fundraiser, but he will not help the struggling families in Las Vegas and Nevada who are out of work because of his reckless comments.” Governor Gibbons noted, “President Obama is coming to Las Vegas to raise campaign cash for Senator Harry Reid, apparently our money is good enough for the President, but our tourism, jobs, and economic future are not.” Gibbons added, “This is politics, pure and simple, President Obama stood for change, but all he has done is brought negative economic change to Nevada.”
Governor Gibbons is calling upon Senator Reid to use any influence he might have to ask President Obama to encourage Americans to visit America during their summer vacations this year. “Sometimes Washington politicians forget that the people of Nevada are Americans,” Governor Gibbons said, “This President needs to repair the damage he has done.”
And damage it is. Our Marxist-socialist in the White House has marked corporate America as Public Enemy #1. He doesn’t want to meet with the governor of Nevada because he doesn’t care, and probably even enjoys the hole he’s shot into the tourist industry of Las Vegas.
But wait! Now the plot thickens: On May 12 it was announced that Barack Obama himself was planning to jet to Las Vegas … to attend a fundraiser for Harry “The War Is Lost” Reid!
Even the liberal L.A. Times smelled something rotten with that action. On May 12, Ashley Powers, from LAT’s Politics blog “Top of the Ticket,” quipped sarcastically:
[W]hat better way for a new Democratic administration to symbolize cutting out excess in a time of hardship for millions of Americans than to hold a mega-fundraiser in Las Vegas, that urban personification of understatement, for a guy with millions in hand already and no one to spend it against?
I totally agree. But interestingly, Powers seems to have changed her position. In a blog post today, Powers criticizes the Nevada governor for “pouting” about Obama’s trip for Reid and his refusal to meet with him. She dismissed the governor’s press release was simply one of his “weapons of choice” (which I guess is Liberal-speak for “calling out a Democrat with the cold hard truth”). I get the impression that some time between last week and today, someone at the White House warned her to mind her tone ... I have just sent a comment to Ms. Powers expressing regarding this inconsistency. Let’s see if she posts it; comments are author-moderated.
Granted, being in NJ, I know very little about Nevada politics and from what little I know, the current Republican governor does not seem very popular and will probably not be re-elected. Be that as it may, Obama’s jaunt to Vegas to fundraise for a Democrat millionaire while having already succeeded in frightening corporate executives—private citizens who have done nothing other than commit the mortal Marxist sin of making a few bucks—into not traveling to Vegas.
This is the president of our own country who has done this. He’s a Democrat King Midas: Everything he touches turns to crap.
Seriously, if you voted for this guy, how do you look yourself in the mirror?
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