"Let Them Eat Cake!"

Dear Mr. President,

As I viewed the picture of your family walking out of Air Force One I couldn't decide how I felt or how I was to feel. What fun for your children to be experiencing life like this and hopefully you will help them keep it all in perspective. What fun for your wife to be experiencing life like this. But then I wonder what you and your family are communicating by this extravagant visit and are you tracking, are you really putting your ear to the ground and understanding what you are conveying?

I am the last one to be a wet blanket, I love opportunities. However, as a mother of six children, owner with my husband of two businesses that are hand to mouth existing, vacations are few and far between. Our oldest daughter got married just two weeks ago. To prepare for the reception in our back yard, I was out gardening from late spring up until now. All the while trying to figure out where the money for the wedding was coming from .

The nation is financially struggling, many people are losing their homes, their businesses, their careers and you are staying on an island at a home that's worth beyond what most of us will ever see. Why aren't we all in politics, I don't get it?

You have requested privacy and that is understandable for a movie star but honestly, Mr. President, not for the President of the United States. It is our tax money (quite the struggle to pay) that you are using. You don't have the luxury of privacy for things such as this. You owe us a view into your time. You ran for office and not under duress, you knew this was part of it.

Most Americans respect you and your wife's need for protecting your young daughters from the public eye and scrutiny but how you are handling this vacation is making me uncomfortable with your lack of transparency during it, it verges on elitism, not going over well! We Americans are taking note and I can safely say that these notes are bipartisan.

Again, who is advising you on such things?

Of course, I believe we all need to have some rest and relaxation but you had an opportunity to show the nation how to do it within reason, not in such affluence. And now you are shutting the door and requesting privacy, this is rude. "Let them eat cake" is all I hear communicated through your Martha Vineyard Vacation.

Blessings,

Mrs. Burkholder