EVERETT, Wash. President Barack Obama spent the better part of the last week rubbing elbows with the Hollywood and tech industry A-list and being serenaded by Grammy winners on an $8 million-plus fundraising tour of the West Coast that helps explain why he is on track to set a record for campaign donations this year.

But as his motorcade shut down several blocks of traffic in one posh Orange County neighborhood, a bystander expressed the resentment that inevitably trails a president on such a purely political mission:

"That's our money at work," the woman shouted at the president's 17-vehicle procession.

And, indeed, Obama's fundraising success - $29 million in January, the campaign announced Friday - relies heavily on the panoply of presidential perquisites, armored limousines, helicopters, Air Force One.

As presidents and their campaigns are required to do under federal election rules, the Democrats will reimburse the government for part of the cost of Obama's travel. They've handed over more than $1.5 million so far this election cycle.

But that's nowhere near the actual cost.

A traveling White House entails a huge team of advance workers, vehicles, military and civilian personnel, as well as a vast security network. The presidential plane, a modified Boeing 747, costs at least $57,000 per hour to operate, the amount the Air Force publicly estimated in 1998.

Under federal rules that have been in force for decades, the president's campaign reimburses the government at a much lower rate - the equivalent of the commercial airfare for himself and any staff who are traveling for fundraising or other nonofficial work, as well as their costs for food and lodging.

"It's been one nonstop campaign trip after another," House Speaker John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, said this week when he was at work in the Capitol and Obama was headed to the first of four fundraisers of the day.

White House press secretary Jay Carney said the president's schedulers had compressed as many fundraising events as possible into the trip to minimize the toll on the president's time. Taking account of the time the president spent at campaign events and en route to them this week, Obama was raising nearly $6,000 per minute.