White House press secretary Jay Carney told reporters Wednesday afternoon that “general” tours of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. are “labor intensive operations” and will remain closed due to the sequester.
“The decision has been made to cancel the general tours,” Carney explained. “As the president said in his interview [on Tuesday with ABC], he’s asked the White House to consult with the Secret Service to see if there’s any way to provide limited tours to school groups or others — that’s being reviewed.”
“But I should be clear that there’s not an option here to reopen the tours in general here because, again, that’s not an option because of the sequester cuts,” Carney insisted. (RELATED: Obama blames Secret Service for closing White House tours)
“These are labor intensive operations that require thousands of man hours by the Secret Service,” Carney said, “and the decision was made that given the unhappy set of choices sequester presented to the Secret Service, that this was the best option.”