Obamas Paying For White House Redecorating Personally

This is impressive and ridiculously unselfish. What leaders!

Obamas Paying For White House Redecorating Personally
Added by Mark Nickolas on Mar 30, 2009 - add as a friend | PM me

Relates to: Barack Obama, Michelle Obama

I think this is called leading by example:

At a time when people are having trouble holding on to their houses, Barack and Michelle Obama have sensibly decided not to use taxpayers’ money to renovate theirs. New presidents are allotted $100,000 to overhaul the White House residence and the Oval Office, and the Obamas hired Hollywood decorator Michael S. Smith (known, per his site, for mixing “Old World classicism with very contemporary settings”).

But the First Couple isn’t spending that money. They “are not using public funds or accepting donations of goods for redecorating their private quarters,” says Camille Johnston, director of communications for the First Lady. Nor is the couple, who reported $4.2 million in household income in 2007 tax returns, using money from the White House Historical Association, a privately funded foundation that paid for a $74,000 set of china shortly before Laura Bush left town.