Hot spot: Biden rented out more than 100 rooms in the Hotel Intercontinental Paris Le Grand
By Meghan Keneally
PUBLISHED: 12:25 EST, 22 March 2013 | UPDATED: 16:29 EST, 22 March 2013
Paris may be known as the City of Light, but that title certainly doesn’t mean that visitors are light on spending as Vice President Joe Biden’s one day trip cost taxpayers more than half a million dollars.
When Mr Biden and his hefty entourage stayed in Paris for an evening in early February and it cost $585,000.50 for that single night.
The Vice President likely rented out more than 100 rooms in the Hotel Intercontinental Paris Le Grand, though they must not have gotten a group discount rate.
he price was reported by The Weekly Standard after they discovered the official contract filing online, showing how much the government paid for the hotel bill.
Few details were revealed about the five-star stay, but the Intercontinental reportedly has a promotion where if guests ‘find a lower price elsewhere and your first night is free.’
That must not have applied to Mr Biden and his security detail, however, because it would have been far less costly for tax payers if their one-night bill was taken care of.
Because the hotel doesn't offer a Vice Presidential suite, Mr Biden likely enjoyed a title bump as he probably stayed in the two-room Presidential Suite which goes for 2,975 euros per night.
The 1,851-square foot suite features an interconnecting entertainment area, marble bathrooms and 'upscale' linens.
The Vice President's wife, Dr Jill Biden, was traveling with him and their first stop was in Germany, before heading to Paris and finishing the tour in London on February 5.
The cost of foreign trips is always a lightning rod for conservatives who balk at the idea of paying so much for government officials to travel.
In that vein, Twitter quickly lit up in a fury about the outrageous price tag, with many picking up on the irony that his expensive trip cam just three weeks before the much-reviled sequester budget measure went into effect.
Instead of focusing on the politics behind the spending, controversial political pundit Ann Coulter made a joke at Mr Biden's expense, saying that 'we need to keep him out of the mini-bar', ignoring the fact that the Vice President is a known teetotaler who abstains from alcohol.
The Paros expenditure came immediately before the Vice President spent a night in London where he met with Prime Minister David Cameron.
For some reason, the pound must be at a better level than the euro as his hotel bill for one night at the Hyatt Regency in London was only $459,388.65, more than $100,000 less than his night in Paris.
The contract for the London trip specifies that the Vice President’s crew required 136 hotel rooms for the evening, so it is fair to assume that they needed a similar- if not the exact same- number in Paris for the next leg of the trip.
Ah, the good life! Just like billionaires ought to have it. And at taxpayer expense because the 2% need those bucks rolling in that otherwise are wasted on social programs such as fighting poverty and hunger for America's poor. Forget them! Forget the poor of the world when it's the high life for elected politicians only needing millions of dollars from taxpayers and approval of special interest groups, such as NRA and AIPAC, to hold office in our great nation of America.
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