They would like for us to tell our friends and family to stay home. They don't seem to understand the attendance issue is going to be a slightly bit different from the others.
Here is a response from PianoFan that was posted on 1/14. I’m tired of answering this question over and over so I will cut and paste his response going forward.
I did allot of research and reading to answer a question regarding the Inaugural costs. I was very interested in this myself. I'm sorry to copy/paste my answer from that question, but it's too much to go through again.
The cost would be at $42 million given the $15 million that was already allotted and the $27 million raised in donations. Extra cost would be the funds being made available by President Bush's declaration if need be.
The Govt sets aside $15 million in Federal Funds for Inaugurations. President Bush has declared an emergency for the District of Columbia because of the millions of people expected to arrive in the city. The funds which will come from Federal Funds as well, are available for security purposes and protecting the public.
http://www.salon.com/wires/ap/2009/01/13...
The Inaugural Balls and other festivities are not paid for by taxpayer's dollars, but are funded by private donor's, which seems to have raised $27 million.
http://community.beliefnet.com/forums/sh...
Taxpayers pay for their own State officials that attend the swearing in ceremony only, via a business trip expense. Everything their State officials attend is of no cost to the citizens of that particular State.
The Floats etc., in the parades are paid for by whatever organization they represent. Here is a link that George Washington University has spent $85,000 on their float. The student who wrote the blog, thought it would have been better off donated by the school as an Inaugural scholarship or something else given his thoughts on the float itself. But the link is for informational purposes only as to who pays for what.
http://www.uwire.com/Article.aspx?id=364...
Edit: This is very nice! A businessman spent 1 million dollars of his own money to bring disadvantaged people from all walks of life to the Inauguration for three days. Lets one know there are still 'random acts of kindness' people out there, regardless if there would be any tax deduction or whatever else someone might accuse this man of for doing something nice.
http://www.tennessean.com/article/200812...
For Comparison:
President Bush's 2nd Inauguration in 2005 was $40 million, and President Clinton's in 1993 was $33 million.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6839280/
Here are two links that list and describe the donors for the Inauguration Committee. The second link lists by name and amount of donation. The first link explains how donations of larger amounts are done with links to those lists as well.
http://www.nowpublic.com/world/mr-obamas...
http://www.pic2009.org/page/content/dono...
It seems that there is full disclosure about where the money is coming from for all of the Inaugural Activities. The Govt obviously puts in $15 million of Federal Funds for the swearing in ceremony, so it would seem the only extra out of individuals taxes would be for their particular State Representatives that are attending the swearing in ceremony only. That would be considered a State Business Expense allocation.
I know it seems a tremendous amount of money given the hard times we are in, but comparing to past Inaugurations, it doesn't seem to be going over the 2005 costs, and until I researched this, I too thought all the festivities were paid for by taxpayer's and such is not the case, with the exception of their Governor's etc who would be attending the ceremony and billing the State back for that travel expe