Thank God For Capitalism

Photo: Korea.net Korean Culture and Information Service (Jeon Han)

How else could we possibly pay for this?

John Paul's visit to NYC in 1995 cost the city $4,401,714,  Benedict's visit cost NYC $6,584,637, the federal government's budget for "national special security events" is a mere $4,500,000.

Who's footing the bill?  Well as they said on Yahoo "The simple answer is everybody but the Vatican". 

To give you an idea of the logistics involved in events like this, the manning for John Paul's visit was: 36,713 people including 685 police lieutenants, 3,810 sergeants, and 32,218 officers.

The event in Philadelphia alone is estimated to cost $48,000,000 and to their credit the World Meeting of Families has set a fundraising goal of $45,000,000 so far they've raised $30,000,000.  The city itself expects a $12,000,000 dollar bill.  The Philadelphia Convention and Visitor's Bureau has estimated that the event will bring (okay, I'll stop with all the zeroes, I think I've made my point) $418 million and many think that's an overly optimistic and unrealistic estimate.  Even if dead on and all that money is spent solely in Philadelphia the city's take will still be well short of its estimated $12M cost ($8.36M based on the city sales and use tax).  Hopefully the World Meeting will pitch in and make up the difference.

When asked about the cost most of the government agencies involved at all levels simply respond with no comment.  How's that for transparency?

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not opposed to the Pope's visit but consider this... a Georgetown University study estimated that the Catholic Church's net Sunday rake each and every week here in the good old USA is $850,000,000 (Okay, I lied about the zeroes).

Fortune: Who will pay for the Pope's visit?

IB Times: How Rich is the Vatican

I'll leave you with this gem from the Fortune article:

NJ.com writes that some of the expenses will be covered by event organizers and the federal government, but taxpayers likely won’t be completely off the hook.

Uh...who do they think funds the federal government?

And to be honest, NJ.com didn't actually write that, Fortune did. 

So How About it Papa, care to go Dutch?