There have been reports over the last 72 hours that President Obama is closing the US Embassy to the Vatican. Defenders of the President say he is not closing it. Instead he is simply moving the US Mission from its current, stand-alone building, to America’s main Embassy building in Rome which is in fact closer to the Vatican by 0.1 of a mile.
In the past, the Vatican has insisted that countries maintain embassies to the Holy See and to Rome in separate locations, but it hasn’t protested the U.S. relocation. The State Department official said that while the embassies will be located on the same compound, the Vatican embassy will have separate entrances.
The reported reason for this change is security and a way to save $1.4 million. As for security, I have not seen any intelligence reports to form an opinion, but as for saving money, it’s bogus.
Here is small look at State Department spending per Fiscal/budget Year (see table 5.2), and you tell me if there is an interest in “savings.”
FY 1995 $7.4 Billion
FY 1998 $7.2 Billion
FY 2001 $7.4 Billion
FY 2004 $10.9 Billion
FY2007 $13.7 Billion
FY2010 $23.8 Billion
FY2011 $24.3 Billion
FY2012 $26.9 Billion
FY2013 $31 Billion (final numbers not available yet)
The State Department budget tripled over the last ten years by the billions but we ought to believe that stripping the independence from the US Embassy to the Holy See by a “bitter clingers” President is budgetary? Even after accounting for inflation, the spending explosion is huge.
President Clinton who didn’t hike State’s budget didn’t diminish the Embassy but budget-buster Obama is on to savings…
Congressman Scott Perry wrote earlier this year that there is enough money between the State Department budget and other “foreign affairs” expenditures to be used on Embassy security instead of on frivolous programs, waste, fraud and abuse that are infamous in bureaucracies.
So what is driving Obama? Jeb Bush thinks it’s retaliation:
Why would our President close our Embassy to the Vatican? Hopefully, it is not retribution for Catholic organizations opposing Obamacare.
— Jeb Bush (@JebBush) November 27, 2013
As a side note: The US Mission to the Vatican was formalized in 1984 by Ronald Reagan.