Obama Takes Wife out for Expensive Night on Town - Taxpayers Pick up the Tab

His public schedule listed no official events, so President Obama had plenty of time to devote to being a weekend dad and spouse.

The president and first lady Michelle Obama watched daughter Malia's soccer game for an hour Saturday morning in the Palisades neighborhood, a short drive from the White House.

For the evening, the first couple jetted to New York City for date night.

They dined a little more than two hours at Blue Hill, a West Village restaurant, then headed to the Belasco Theater to make it in time for "Joe Turner's Come and Gone."

The play by August Wilson is about black America in the early 1900s, with residents of a boardinghouse recalling their migration from the sharecropping farms of the South to the industrialized North.

The White House refused to say how much the trip was costing taxpayers.

Even before the Obamas left Washington, the there-and-back trip drew criticism from Republicans. They questioned the president's decision to travel to New York for a night of entertainment during a recession and while automakers struggle to survive.

It was just a few months ago that auto executives were roundly criticized when they traveled to Washington for congressional hearings in pricey private planes.

The Republican National Committee issued a news release that chastised Obama for saying he understands American's troubles, but then hopping up to New York for "a night on the town."

Noting that General Motors is expected to file for Chapter 11 protection on Monday, the news release said: "Putting on a show: Obamas wing into the city for an evening out while another iconic American company prepares for bankruptcy." - FOX News Story

For a man who says he feels our pain and gets it, sure doesn't get it. He blasts Banks for taking expensive trips, their jets, bonuses, but it is ok for him to take an expensive night out and have the Taxpayers pick up the tab? He doesn't get it!