[custom_frame_left][/custom_frame_left]You’ve likely noticed that the presidential election has become rather contentious this year. It seems like the candidates are sparing no expense in their effort to one-up each other. And between the conventions, the continuously running ads, the travel, and all of the other expenses associated with attempting to win a presidential election, 2012 presidential election spending is, some say, out of control. You might be wondering just how much money is flying around to pay for all of it.
By the time the election is over, the total cost is estimated to be about $6 billion. That’s an amount of money that most of us probably can’t even imagine. How much money is that?
Let’s take a look at the numbers.
Ryan Seacrest recently sold his home for $11 million. So for $715 million, the amount of money that the Obama campaign has raised so far, you could buy about 65 Beverly Hill mansions.
In May of 2012 the St. Louis Blues were sold for approximately $120 million. So for $710 million, the amount of money the Romney campaign has raised thus far, you could buy about six NHL hockey teams.
The Democratic and Republican National Conventions are paid for primarily by donors. However, each host city was provided with a $50 million government grant to cover expenses such as security and lodging. One of the most expensive cars on the market today is the Aston Martin One-77. It retails for $1.8 million. If you had $50 million lying around, you could buy about 27 Aston Martin One-77s.
Donors for the Democratic National Convention raised about $36.6 million. Donors for the Republican National Convention raised about $55 million. That’s a total of $91.6 million raised to host both conventions. For $91.6 million, you could purchase five $18 million Learjet 85s, the fastest Learjet manufactured to date.
As I mentioned above, the total spending for the elections is estimated to reach about $6 billion. Earlier this year, the Los Angeles Dodgers were sold for about $2 billion. So if you had access to $6 billion you could buy three professional baseball teams.
On the other hand, $6 billion would knock off about .0375% of the $16 trillion national debt. What would you do with $6 billion?