The term “public servant” is an absurd juxtaposition of words. Any encounter with law enforcement, the DMV, a building inspector, animal control, code enforcement, school-board official, tax agent, or nearly every other government operative leaves little doubt who is public and who is servant. To utter “public servant” to imply an obedient government is to utter nonsense. 

At the apex of government, the notion of “public servant” breaks the boundaries of the nonsensical and approaches the Kafkaesque, where the royal invalids – the president, his wife, and the vice president – reside. No price is too high, no cost too onerous to ensure these rarefied individuals live lives as frictionless as possible. 

In Free to Choose, Milton and Rose Friedman explicate four spending categories: 1) spend your money on yourself, 2) spend your money on someone else, 3) spend someone else's money on you, 4) spend someone else's money on someone else. Government at all level excels at category four. Who other than someone who couldn't give a damn would spend $2.6 million to encourage Chinese prostitutes to drink more responsibly?

Mastering category three, though, is the gateway to Cockaigne. This is what the government bureaucrat strives toward, and Cockaigne is what the royal invalids have achieved: Every need is attended to, every beck-and-call answered. They are the sociopaths with an endless line of credit they need not repay.  

Unbridled profligacy is on full display when a royal invalid rolls into town. Just pondering the security entourage, per diem per entourage member, operational cost of the tricked-out jet, operational cost of the supporting military jet that carries the motorcade, and the operational cost of the motorcade itself, it's easy to conjure a lot of money spent, and it's likely more than you conjure. 

In a response to Judicial Watch, the Air Force acknowledged that it costs $210,877 per hour to fly Air Force One, as it pertained President Obama's July 2014 trip to Denver. The Air Force's number accounted for fuel, flight consumables, depot level repairables, aircraft overhaul, engine overhaul, and nothing more. Judicial Watch received a log of the trip, which showed 3.3 hours. Multiply 3.3 hours by the hourly rate and the tally comes to $695,894.

But 3.3 hours is only one way. The president has to eventually return to Washington D.C., so the round trip tallies to $1.39 million. Keep in mind, these costs relate to Air Force One only; none of the ancillary costs are factored in. 

And what was the return on investment to taxpayers for President Obama's two-day July junket to the Mile High City: On day one the president gallivanted in lower downtown Denver, eating and yucking it up with a few locals. Then it was off to a nearby watering hole to drink beer and play pool with Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper. The following day was spent fundraising for Colorado Senator Mark Udall and bashing Republicans in a local Denver park.     

Of course, appearances matter. Spending $1.39 million (at a minimum) to eat, drink beer, and further ensconce your party in power is unseemly, even to the most rapacious parasites. To save face, rules made to be broken are written to serve as cover. 

The rules state that when a trip is for an official function, the government pays all costs, including per diem and most other imaginable expense. When a trip is political or unofficial, the waters muddy, and the government employee must reimburse the government with the equivalent of the airfare that he would have paid had he flied commercial. When a trip is both official and political, a formula determines the amount to be reimbursed for that part of the trip involving political activities.

Of course, determining what's official and what's unofficial is like determining what the General Welfare Clause means. It's in the eye of the beholder. As for the formula, it's as easy to discern as the Colonel’s secret recipe. Not that it matters. When the royal invalids are involved, you and I will pay, regardless of party. When George W. Bush occupied the White House, taxpayers paid for 97% of his travel, the Republican Party paid the rest, according to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.   

To be ferried about in a Boeing 747 (or in modified 757s, as is the case for the first lady and vice president) is offensive to working-class sensibilities, but not to royal-invalid sensibilities. It's not enough to spend millions per trip and travel in four-star luxury. Everyone at the destination must bear witness. Timing, in other words, matters as much as presentation.

I've twice experienced the royal-invalid visit in Denver: First, for the Obama/Romney 2012 presidential debate; second, for the recent September visit by Vice President Joe Biden. What I mean by experience is to have hours of my life extracted and my personal misery index raised. 

Under the guise of security, the president and the vice president travel on land in a train of blackened SUVs guided by a few local police cars and caboosed by an ambulance. The road the train travels must be cleared of plebeian detritus and made the sole, unspoiled domain of the royal invalid. Of course, the road is never some backwater thoroughfare.  No, it's the interstate and the arteries that lead to the interstate – roads most heavily traveled by everyone. 

This is all done in the name of security. After all, nothing screams security like a train of black SUVs anyone can spot a mile away because there is no traffic for which it to blend. So why not make the train even more conspicuous by running it at the height of road demand – the rush hour?

As for my experience, both President Obama and President-Wannabe Romney swanned into Denver to debate at the University of Denver. The route from Buckley Air Force base, where the president lands when Denver beckons, to the University of Denver necessitated closing in both directions the heaviest traveled sections of I-25 and I-70 to all but Obama and Romney and their support retinue. Everyone else was diverted to side streets.

Thankfully, Biden, as vice president, is insufficiently blue blood to close both directions. From my vantage point (initially a clogged on-ramp) only his directional flow was cleared from Denver International Airport to I-70 to I-25 into downtown Denver.  Still, the timing was impeccable -- rush hour. This for ostensibly a speech to domestic violence victims and law enforcement leaders (whoever they are). Oh, and to fundraise for Democratic congressional candidate Andrew Romanoff. 

To gambol around the United States like Sultan of Brunei fairies isn't the worst of it. Yes, every time Barack, Michelle, and Joe hit the road, we are collectively a million or two millions dollars poorer. Because each of us bears less than a cent per trip, we rationally have no inclination to protest. But the degree of personal impoverish raises exponentially when the royal invalid is within sight. In these instances, hundreds of thousands of individuals are inconvenienced; frustration rises, and time and money are lost. 

In my own meaningless universe, three hours were sacrificed crawling and swearing through snarled backstreet traffic when Obama and Romney came to town. With Biden, I lost two hours. Multiple my measly opportunity costs hundreds of thousands of times and you are looking at millions of dollars worth of lost productivity.   

If the royal invalids never visit your town, consider yourself lucky. Should one plan a visit, pay attention and avoid him as best you can. After all, what are you missing? 

Stephen Mauzy is a financial writer and principal of S.P. Mauzy & Associates. He can be reached at steve@spmauzyandassociates.com