Obama's $2 billion India armada

By now every American knows how much U.S. taxpayers are spending for Barack Obama's 10-day trip to India this week.

The price tag is $200 million a day – or an even $2 billion for the whole excursion that involves the deployment of 3,000 people, 34 warships and hundreds of helicopters.

The White House denies the $200 million price tag, but that's what India officials estimated. The White House refuses to provide a figure.

This trip, of course, comes at a time when America is facing dire economic challenge.

So, maybe you ask, "What is the purpose of this trip?"

Seemingly lost in all the outrage over the expense is the reason, the justification, the payoff, if you will.

Obama has explained it.

But most Americans missed it because they were, understandably, so shocked by the sticker price.

To me, Obama's rationalization for the extravagance is more outrageous than spending more money the U.S. Treasury doesn't have.

He says the purpose of the India excursion is to bring jobs and economic opportunities to the U.S. through expanded trade.

What's wrong with this picture?

Expanded trade with India for the foreseeable future spells a continued massive exodus of jobs from the U.S. India represents cheap labor for multinational U.S. corporations. That's why you so often hear an Indian voice on the other end of a customer service phone call. Got a computer problem? You call an India call service center. Got question about your phone bill? You're likely connected to an India call center. Behind on your mortgage loan payments because you're out of work or underemployed? You are likely to get a call from an India call service center asking you to make a payment to avoid foreclosure.

You know the drill.

More and more corporations have taken these kinds of jobs from the U.S. to India for pennies on the dollar.

Nevertheless, that's what Obama is claiming. In previewing Obama's trip last week, his aides mentioned "jobs" or "jobs back here" some 17 times.

"Indian companies are the second-fastest-growing investors in the United States and they … now support about 57,000 jobs here in the U.S.," said Michael Froman, deputy national security adviser for international economic affairs."

Let's dissect that statement at face value. I suspect it's probably inaccurate and an exaggeration. But, nevertheless, let's pretend it's true. Total investment in the U.S. by Indian investors supports 57,000 jobs in America. Is that supposed to impress us? That is fewer people than Microsoft alone employs – and more and more of those jobs are going to India.

Let's assume, again, for the moment, that those 57,000 U.S. jobs are real and pay an average of $35,000 a year. Multiply 57,000 times $35,000, and guess what you get? The $2 billion Obama is spending in 10 days in India! Actually, not quite. Obama is spending several tens of millions more. The numbers just don't work out.

Yet, there's White House spokesman Robert Gibbs explaining how the "trip is basically economic in focus," presumably because that's what Americans want to hear as they try to dig themselves out of this economic morass Obama has deepened.

Maybe you ask, "Are there any concrete investment deals to be brokered on this trip?"

No, but there will be some big corporate deals announced.

I don't want to ruin it for anyone, but Boeing has already brokered a $5.4 billion sale of C-17 transport aircraft to the Indian government and an additional sale of commercial aircraft to an Indian airliner. And General Electric has already brokered another deal to sell power turbines to the Indian energy company Reliance. But those deals would take place regardless of whether Obama went to India or not – and both will result in far more jobs in India than they will in the U.S.

So it's not really about jobs in the U.S. That's just the cover story.

What is the $2 billion trip really about?

It is two-fold:

It is an opportunity for Obama to be adored by the Indian public before the entire world and particularly back here in the U.S. where his political stock has plummeted.

It is a chance for Obama to bolster his own approval in India where both the public and the government are deeply concerned about his announced plans for what is expected to be a rather chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan beginning next summer. This fact, combined with U.S. coddling of Indian arch-enemy Pakistan, has political leaders there worried.

Obama believes he can "wow them," as was suggested last week on a conference call for journalists sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations. In other words, this is a political face-saving trip for Obama's failed policies – and nothing more. It's back to the razzle-dazzle of the campaign trail for Obama – in a location where no one will ask him about his birth certificate or his record over the last two years.

It's not, of course, about U.S. jobs at all – unless we're talking about Obama's job.