President Obama engages in target practice in a shot dated Aug. 4, 2012. (White House)
President Obama, wearing a Washington Nationals jacket and a Chicago White Sox hat, delivers the ceremonial first pitch during Opening Day ceremonies for a baseball game between the Philadelphia Phillies and Washington Nationals on Monday, April 5, 2010, at Nationals Park in Washington. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
** FILE ** President Obama’s bicycle ride on June 8. (Associated Press)
**FILE** In this photo from July 14, 2009, President Obama throws out the first pitch before the All-Star baseball game in St. Louis. (Associated Press)
President Obama gets ready to toss a football in this photo posted on his Twitter feed moments before the Super Bowl kickoff between the Ravens and 49ers. It was taken in 2010.
President Obama tosses the rock in 2012 at Soldier Field in Chicago.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama plays basketball with the University of North Carolina's Jack Wooten in Chapel Hill, N.C., on April 29.
President Barack Obama is handed a personalized basketball by a military aide as he arrives for a private game of basketball at Fort McNair in Washington, Saturday, Sept. 18, 2010. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
Obama golfing
President Barack Obama, left, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, right, and Ohio Gov. John Kasich are on the first green as they play golf at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., Saturday, June 18, 2011. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
President Obama reaches for his beer on the bar as he greets patrons during an unscheduled visit to the Common Man Merrimack restaurant on Saturday, Oct. 27, 2012, in Merrimack, N.H. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
U.S. President Barack Obama drinks Guinness beer as he meets with local residents at Ollie Hayes pub in Moneygall, Ireland, the ancestral homeland of his great-great-great grandfather, Monday, May 23, 2011. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama is on vacation this week in Honolulu. But his campaign has not taken a break; 16 of the 18 states it deems as battlegrounds will see the new ad. (Associated Press)
President Obama kisses first lady Michelle as they and daughter Malia (right) take in an exhibition game July 16, 2012, between the U.S. men's basketball team and Brazil at Verizon Center in D.C. (Ryan M.L. Young/The Washington Times)
President Barack Obama waves to a crowd as he leaves the Bunch ... more >
With no solution yet for automatic budget cuts due to kick in March 1, both President Obama and congressional lawmakers have decamped from Washington for vacations.
Mr. Obama arrived in Florida Friday night for a four-day, President’s Day weekend of golf lessons and relaxation with a wealthy campaign donor who was once the target of anti-minority bias complaints, while first lady Michelle Obama is vacationing separately in the ski mecca of Aspen, Colo., with their daughters.
The president hit the links Saturday morning at the Floridian Golf Club, a private, gated golf community in Palm City. The White House said Mr. Obama has no plans to leave the golf resort all day.
Congress will be in recess for the next 10 days, not returning to work until Feb. 25, four days before the “sequestration” cuts are to take effect.
Senate Democrats proposed a $110 billion plan Thursday that would postpone defense cuts for two years and end some agricultural subsidies, but there is no agreement on the horizon with Republicans who control the House of Representatives.
House Democrats tried to stop Congress’s vacation, forcing a vote on the decision to adjourn for the vacation. But Republicans, who control the chamber, won the vote to go home.
Afterward, Democrats called a press conference to demand the chamber come back into session.
“No deal, no break. We really should be here,” Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said.
SEE RELATED: Vacationing kids called back to school for Obama’s planned visit
Democrats do control the Senate, and in that chamber they and the GOP agreed to take the weeklong vacation.
The president, who called in his State of the Union address Tuesday for an increase in the federal minimum wage, is savoring some activities that would be unrecognizable to hourly employees.
On Valentine’s Day, Mr. Obama took his wife out to dinner at MiniBar, an exclusive, 12-seat restaurant in the District where the price-fix meal starts at $225 per person, not including beverages.
With mid-level wine pairings, the cost of dinner for two can easily exceed $1,000.
After a quick trip Friday to Chicago to talk about gun violence, Mr. Obama flew on Air Force One to the golf club where he is taking golf lessons from famed instructors Butch Harmon and his son, Claude Harmon III.
White House deputy press
A six-hour “total game evaluation” at their Floridian Golf Club costs $1,500 per person.
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Dave Boyer is a White House correspondent for The Washington Times. A native of Allentown, Pa., Boyer worked for the Philadelphia Inquirer from 2002 to 2011 and also has covered Congress for the Times. He is a graduate of Penn State University. Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
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