Fox News hosts' stunt to fund White House tours could pay for 90,000 food stamp meals

Fox News hosts Sean Hannity and Eric Bolling have offered over $140,000 -- or enough to fund more than 90,000 food stamp meals -- to keep White House tours open after the Obama administration temporarily suspended them due to automatic budget cuts.

NBC News on Tuesday reported that the White House had canceled tours to "reduce overtime costs and prevent furloughs that Secret Service employees potentially face" after Congress failed to stop automatic spending cuts in the so-called sequester.

On Wednesday, NBC reporter Luke Russert argued that President Barack Obama was trying to "stick it to rank-and-file congressmen" because they had the ability to promise tours to their constituents.

During the Thursday's broadcast of Fox News' The Five, host Eric Bolling offered the president "a deal."

"Let these families take their White House tour next week and I'll cover the added expenses," he explained. "Word is it will cost around $74,000. If I can get the White House doors open, I'll pick up the tab... You know this is an offer you can't refuse. Give me a call."

"I think we just realized that The Five isn't your primary source of income," co-host Greg Gutfeld quipped.

Later in the hour, Fox News host Sean Hannity joined in Bolling's offer, tweeting, "[G]reat idea! Count me in, I will pay for a week also!"

But in all the fuss over whether or not lawmakers can give out White House tours as gifts, MSNBC host Martin Bashir pointed out that everyone was missing a very serious point that "it’s the public who are being injured by the sequester."

For the money that Bolling and Hannity have agreed to spend so that lawmakers can give constituents access to a short walk through the White House, the Fox News hosts could also provide one year of nutritional and preschool programs to 15 of the 75 children that could be cut from the Head Start program because of sequestration.

Or according to the Nation, they could fund over 90,000 meals to hungry families through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) food stamps program, which is also expected to face cuts.

Watch this video from Fox News' The Five, broadcast March 7, 2013.