Maybe this year during March Madness, the president could skip flying out to an NCAA basketball tournament in Dayton, Ohio, while 12 million Americans remain unemployed and 46.2 million Americans live in poverty.

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According to NBC, canceling White House tours would save the administration $74,000 a week.

Taking a separate vacation and pretending to be on the PGA Tour to train with Tiger Woods' coach and then play a round with Tiger himself cost U.S. taxpayers more than $1 million. As Sen. Jeff Sessions estimated, that was "enough money to save 341 federal workers from furlough."

Incidentally, it happens to be enough to finance the White House tours of the "People's House" for half of the remaining fiscal year.

The White House claims canceling the tours were "mandatory." Jay Carney called the tour cancellation "unfortunate" and the result of "staffing reductions due to sequestration."

They just could not find anywhere else to cut, certainly not the $102,000 salary of the chief of staff to the president's dog. It's that person's job to keep the dog out of the way during presidential parties.

The entertainment expenses of this president far exceed those of his predecessors.

According to an Oct. 25, 2012 article in The Washington Examiner by Richard Pollock and the Watchdog team, "President Obama has spent far more lavishly on White House state dinners than previous chief executives, including nearly $1 million on a 2010 dinner for Mexico's president, according to documents obtained by The Washington Examiner."

One dinner: $969,793.

Of course, it did feature Beyonce and celebrity guest chef Rick Bayless, flown in from Chicago's Topolobampo restaurant.

But more important, it kept the three White House calligraphers busy, earning their combined $277,050-a-year salaries.

Heaven help us when Western civilization has declined to the point where the White House would have to use "Edwardian Script" or "Verdana" or another computer font on a White House invitation. Don't you know that shovel-ready or "flat-balled" -- and "round-nibbed" -- ready jobs are hard to find?

Oh, where to cut?

Operating Air Force One costs almost $180,000 an hour. Maybe this year during March Madness, the president could skip flying out to an NCAA basketball tournament in Dayton, Ohio, while 12 million Americans remain unemployed and 46.2 million Americans live in poverty.

Skipping the Mississippi Valley State University Delta Devils play Western Kentucky's Big Red last year might have kept the White House tour open for the Lanier Middle School students and anyone who wanted to tour the White House for almost half the year.

Of course, the president and British Prime Minister David Cameron would have to settle for watching the tournament on television or perhaps attending a White House concert.

I hear Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder, Tony Bennett, Paul Simon, Marc Anthony, Herbie Hancock, Martina McBride, Queen Latifah, the Foo Fighters, Faith Hill, Paul McCartney, B.B. King and Mick Jagger have all performed at the White House. No doubt, they all got tours, too.

It is amazing that Congress, which is also subject to sequester cuts, found enough revenue to continue tours of the U.S. Capitol.

The good news is that for just a $500,000 contribution to Obama's former campaign, now a 501(c)(4) called Organizing for Action -- or, as I like to call it, Solicitations for Access -- you can bypass the tours completely and meet with the president himself four times a year. Or maybe you can just tag along with former SEIU, and White House regular, President Andy Stern.

That's much cheaper than a weekend with Tiger Woods or a presidential hissy fit.

 Michael Ramirez is an Investor's Business Daily senior editor and a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for political cartooning.

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