Aamer Madhani and David Jackson

USA TODAY

Republicans say an upscale vacation is extravagant when people are struggling to make ends meet.

Democrats criticized George W. Bush for spending too much time away from Washington%2C too.

Wherever the president is%2C technology and aides make sure he%27s never completely away from work.

President Obama and his family are heading to Martha's Vineyard on Saturday for a week of rest and relaxation, but not before facing the ritual partisan grumblings that presidential vacations are extravagant and waste taxpayer money.

While Congress is in the midst of its own five-week break, Republican officials haven't missed the opportunity to question the president for heading to the upscale Massachusetts community at a time when automatic cuts to the federal budget have left the Defense Department and other agencies furloughing employees.

Rep. Chris Stewart, R-Utah, said no one begrudges the president taking some time with his family. But Stewart, who earlier this year introduced a resolution calling on Obama to skip vacations until the White House restored public tours — mothballed as a result of across-the-board federal cuts known as sequestration— suggested the president's trip to the upscale community in Chilmark, Mass., appears "tone deaf."

"Most of the people in my district could never afford to visit Martha's Vineyard, and those who could would feel uncomfortable vacationing in a place that has a reputation for being for the elite," said Stewart in a telephone interview from his district.

Obama is scheduled to arrive on Saturday after he and first lady Michelle Obama travel to Orlando, where he will address the Disabled American Veterans National Convention. While on the Vineyard this year, the Obamas will be staying at the $7.6 million vacation home of David Schulte, a Democratic campaign donor and corporate finance manager.

Diana Waterman, chairman of the Maryland Republican Party, listed personal trips that the president and his family have taken to Hawaii, New York and Europe since the start of his presidency that were partially paid by taxpayers. With unemployment still at 7.4%, Waterman said going to the Vineyard seems exorbitant and suggested that Obama instead take his time off at the presidential retreat at Camp David.

"When there are so many people out there looking for jobs and Americans are struggling to make ends meet, this sends the wrong message to people who are struggling to survive," Waterman said.

White House spokesman Jay Carney on Thursday dismissed the criticism and said that Republicans scoffed at those who pilloried George W. Bush for spending too much time away from Washington during his presidency.

At the same point in Bush's presidency, the 43rd president had spent 367 days at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, and his parent's compound at Kennebunkport, Maine, according to a count by CBS News reporter Mark Knoller. Obama, who doesn't own a vacation home, has spent a total of 92 days of his presidency on vacation, according to Knoller.

"I would just check what they said six years ago," Carney said of the Republican criticism.

The tradition of criticizing presidents for the choice of vacation spots and duration of their holiday is as old as the Republic itself.

Republicans jeered at Bill Clinton, who famously decided to vacation at Jackson Hole, Wyo., instead of Martha's Vineyard at the advice of his pollster ahead of the 1996 election.

Even Franklin Roosevelt was criticized for spending time on a yacht, which may have led to him taking a seven-day fishing trip to Canada during World War II without letting the media know. And John Adams spent seven months at his Quincy, Mass., farm in 1798, and was accused of abdicating his office. The criticism didn't help him in his bid for a second term.

But these days, when the president is tethered by technology and a coterie of staff is always nearby, he is never completely away from work.

Obama, like his predecessors, will travel with a large entourage of aides and Secret Service, and he will receive his daily briefing on national security and the economy.

Between golf outings with friends and ice cream runs with his daughters, there will likely be private conversations with aides on a variety of issues, including the looming budget and debt-ceiling deadlines and whom he's going to pick to be the next Federal Reserve chairman.

If he's lucky, no big emergencies will upend his trip. George W. Bush had to deal with Hurricane Katrina during a vacation in the summer. Bill Clinton ordered airstrikes against al-Qaeda terrorists from Martha's Vineyard in response to the bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. And George H.W. Bush was at his family's compound in coastal Maine when he planned the U.S. response to Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait in 1990.

Obama had to break up his annual Christmas vacation to Hawaii last year to return to Washington after he was unable to negotiate a compromise with Congress to avert across-the-board tax increases before the holiday.

It "remains the case that wherever he is, he's president of the United States and will be dedicating a portion of his day to being briefed and working on all the issues that are on the table in front of him," Carney said.

Tom Fitton, the president of the conservative group Judicial Watch, said the more substantive issue is about the cost that taxpayers are footing for the president and his family's personal travel. His group has filed a series of lawsuits that have forced the Secret Service to release detailed cost breakdowns for several of the president's and his family's personal trips.

While the president pays for lodging, food and other incidentals, the government pays for Air Force One — which costs approximately $180,000 per hour to operate — and the expenses of Secret Service that must travel with him for his protection. Hotel receipts obtained by Judicial Watch earlier this summer showed that two days of hotel costs for Secret Service agents in Hawaii came to nearly $83,000.

"It's not a question of whether he's better or worse than his predecessors," Fitton said. "It's a question of: Should our government be spending money on this sort of thing in this day and age?"

Contributing: Desair Brown