American Families Cut Way Back on Travel, but Not Congress: All-Time Highs in Spending Taxpayers’ Money on Travel in Democrat Congress
Posted By Vicki McClure Davidson on July 2, 2009
President Barack Obama enjoying a glass of champagne, 2009
Yeah, well, you can paint me peeved.
Being frugal, streamlining and pruning the family budget, making many sacrifices, and cutting back on personal expenses and discretionary perks like family vacations and exotic travel only applies to employed private-sector American citizens, apparently.
Elected members of our Congress haven’t let pesky annoyances like an escalating national recession and record unemployment (unemployment is now at a whopping 9.5%, its highest level in 26 years; another 467,000 American jobs were lost in June, the Labor Department reported today) interfere with their travel plans.
Nope, they’ve increased their use of taxpayers’ money to travel internationally, first-class with all the trimmings. Many of those taxpayer-funded trips were not for business, but for personal reasons. The amounts are staggering. Nothing’s too good for our elected stewards/servants of democracy, eh?
Some of the blog pieces posted today… read with caution: a few may make your blood boil:
Michelle Malkin: New unemployment numbers: Quick, blame Bush!
Gateway Pundit: As Nation Suffers– Pelosi-Reid Congress Increase Travel Costs By 50% During Recession
Hot Air: Dem control of Congress spikes junket travel 50% and Poll: Obama slipping further on economy and Unemployment creeps up to 9.5%
American Thinker: Obama’s new poll low
Nebraska Redneck (and proud of it): Rasmussen Poll Shows Obama Losing It
Ace of Spades HQ: Congress: What Fiscal Crisis?
GayPatriot: Obama Support Is Tanking
Bloomberg.com: Payrolls Fall More Than Forecast, Unemployment Rises (Update4)
Nice Deb: Where’s Them Jobs?
Fire Andrea Mitchell!: Unemployment rate now at 9.5% – Hope and Change!
Wellsy’s World: Unemployment rises and faith in Obama drops
Broken Masterpieces: Congress’s Travel Tab Swells – WSJ.com
Pronk Palisades: President Barack Obama Beats It–President Franklin Roosevelt Record–Worse Unemployment Numbers Since 1933–14,700,000 Unemployed Americans Greater than 13,000,000 in 1933!
Not all elected officials’ expensive trips have been abroad; let us not forget Pres. Obama’s mind-numbingly expensive date with wife Michelle to New York City in late May, paid for by you and me and other taxpayers.
Breakdown on the cost to taxpayers for them to fly out from Washington, DC for dinner and to see a Broadway play:
This arrogance and self-serving socialist mentality by so many elected officials must stop. We must stop them and kick their sorry butts to the curb. Do your research and be prepared when senators and house representatives from your state come up for reelection in 2010. Vote them out.
Congress’s Travel Tab Swells – Spending on Taxpayer-Funded Trips Rises Tenfold; From Italy to the Galápagos
Wall Street Journal | By Brody Mullins and T.W. Farnum
July 2, 2009
WASHINGTON — Spending by lawmakers on taxpayer-financed trips abroad has risen sharply in recent years, a Wall Street Journal analysis of travel records shows, involving everything from war-zone visits to trips to exotic spots such as the Galápagos Islands.
The spending on overseas travel is up almost tenfold since 1995, and has nearly tripled since 2001, according to the Journal analysis of 60,000 travel records. Hundreds of lawmakers traveled overseas in 2008 at a cost of about $13 million. That’s a 50% jump since Democrats took control of Congress two years ago.
The cost of so-called congressional delegations, known among lawmakers as “codels,” has risen nearly 70% since 2005, when an influence-peddling scandal led to a ban on travel funded by lobbyists, according to the data.
Lawmakers say that the trips are a good use of government funds because they allow members of Congress and their staff members to learn more about the world, inspect U.S. assets abroad and forge better working relationships with each other. The travel, for example, includes official visits to American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Journal analysis, based on information published in the Congressional Record, also shows that taxpayer-funded travel is a big and growing perk for lawmakers and their families. Some members of Congress have complained in recent months about chief executives of bailed-out banks, insurance companies and car makers who sponsored corporate trips to resorts or used corporate jets for their own travel.
Although complete travel records aren’t yet available for 2009, it appears that such costs continue to rise. The Journal analysis shows that the government has picked up the tab for travel to destinations such as Jamaica, the Virgin Islands and Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.
Lawmakers frequently bring along spouses on congressional trips. If they take commercial flights, they have to buy tickets for spouses. If they fly on government planes — as they usually do — their spouses can fly free.
Paris Air Show
In mid-June, Sen. Daniel Inouye (D., Hawaii) led a group of a half-dozen senators and their spouses on a four-day trip to France for the biennial Paris Air Show. An itinerary for the event shows that lawmakers flew on the Air Force’s version of the Boeing 737, which costs $5,700 an hour to operate. They stayed at the Intercontinental Paris Le Grand Hotel, which advertises rooms from $460 a night.
The lawmakers were invited to a dinner party at the U.S. Embassy and had cocktails at a private party at the Eiffel Tower. Mr. Inouye attended a dinner sponsored by the Aerospace Industries Association, a U.S. trade group. Another senator on the trip, Alabama Republican Sen. Richard Shelby, took a cruise on the River Seine with defense-industry executives and elected officials from Alabama, Mississippi and Florida.
Mr. Inouye and Mr. Shelby declined to comment.
Often, lawmakers combine trips to war zones with visits to more tranquil spots. In February, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi led a delegation of Democratic lawmakers to visit U.S. troops in Afghanistan for a day. Before landing in Kabul, the eight lawmakers and their entourage of spouses and aides spent eight days in Italy, spending $57,697 on hotels and meals.
A spokesman for Ms. Pelosi says that she was working in Italy, meeting with U.S. troops at Aviano Air Base, laying a wreath at the Florence American Cemetery, giving a speech to Italian lawmakers and visiting the Pope, among other things.
[...]
Congressional Fleet
The congressional trips are possible thanks in part to an unlimited fund created by a three-decade old law. Nearly two dozen government officials work full-time organizing the trips. Much of the costs are not made public, including the cost of flying on government jets. The Air Force maintains a fleet of 16 passenger planes for use by lawmakers.
Documents obtained by the Journal show that the cost of flying a small group of lawmakers to the Middle East is about $150,000. Larger trips on the Air Force’s version of the Boeing 757 cost about $12,000 an hour. Two federal agencies pay for most of the travel — the Defense Department and the State Department.
Exotic Locales
In October, Rep. Bud Cramer (R., Ala.) spent two weeks in Europe on government business. Reports show that Mr. Cramer spent $5,700 on hotels, meals and incidentals. Mr. Cramer wasn’t running for re-election and left office just two months later.
“Knowing that I was leaving with my 18 years of seniority, I wanted to conclude some issues that I was working on,” Mr. Cramer said. He now works for a lobbying firm in Washington.
Some of the most expensive travel is to exotic locales.
Last summer, Rep. Brian Baird (D., Wash.) took a four-day trip to the Galápagos Islands with his wife, four other lawmakers and their family members. The lawmakers spent $22,000 on meals and hotels, records show. Mr. Baird, a member of the House Science Committee, said the trip was to learn about global warming.
On the first day, lawmakers toured a breeding center for giant tortoise and land iguanas before dining with scientists, according to an itinerary for the trip. The next morning, lawmakers headed to the Galápagos National Park while their family members had the option of hiking, swimming or shopping. That afternoon, the group boarded a boat to visit a sea-lion colony and search for white-tip sharks.
Mr. Baird didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Click here to read the entire article.
This cavalier attitude to spending taxapayers’ money is not new. Here are a few previous Frugal Café posts about the current administration’s extravagance and frivolous, wasteful “high living”:
Hypocrisy Exposed in White House: Speaker of the House Pelosi’s Elitist ‘Flying the Friendly Skies in Style’ on America’s Dime
Jim Blazsik: Nice Purse Michelle!
The Obamas’ Personal Debt vs. Obama’s Demand That Americans Cut Back
Party Boy Obama Livin’ It Up Like Royalty While Americans Struggle to Buy Food
Let Them Eat Steak! Wastrel Obama on Collision Course with His Spendthrift Ways
Holy Spendthrift, Batman! NYC Air Force One Flyover Cost Taxpayers $328,835!
DISGRACEFUL. Vote these reckless, wastrel clowns out.
Related reading:
Track-A-’Crat: Straight From The Horse’s Mouth
Excellence In America: Jobless Numbers Continue to Climb as Obama Struggles to “Create or Save” American Jobs
Vets On The Watch: Who Let The Dogs Out
Around The Sphere: Brother, Can You Spare Some Green Shoots?
Mere Rhetoric: Heartache: NYT Liberal Devastated Because He Can’t Afford $14 Organic Milk Any More
Pursuing Holiness: All we want are the facts.
Reuters, Front Row Washington: Obama’s Date Night on Broadway
Hot Air: Blaming Obama for the night on Broadway? and Obama vows: I have not yet begun to destroy the economy
Pundit & Pundette: From chumps to chimps
Jeffrey Jena, Big Hollywood: Are We Witnessing a Greek Tragedy?
Michelle Malkin: Sen. Coburn: Our watchdog
Mail Online.uk: How Obamas’ romantic £120 trip to Broadway racked up a £45,000 bill — ..that’s for three private jets, two helicopter rides, extra planes for security and closing roads for motorcade
Associated Press: Broadway’s bright lights shine on first couple
Christian Toto, Big Hollywood: Another Men’s Mag Votes for The One
OpenMarket: Obama’s Job-Killing Stimulus Package Replaced Investments With Welfare, Out of Political Correctness
The Swamp: Obama: ‘You ain’t seen nothing yet’
TheHill.com: Obama in L.A.: ‘You ain’t seen nothing yet’
Frugal Café Blog Zone: Houston vs. Nancy Pelosi: “We Are No Longer the Silent Majority… Stop Wasting Our Money & Stop Lying” and Yet Another Trillion Dollars of Taxpayer Money… Gregg Warns That Obama’s Bailouts Will Bankrupt America
Fire Andrea Mitchell: White House refuses to release cost of Obama’s little “date” in New York
Slublog: Sacrifice, Obama Style
Phelim McAleer & Ann McElhinney, Big Hollywood: Come Fly With Me | Obama’s Broadway date and Eco-Hypocrisy
Scared Monkeys: Michelle Obama… It’s in the Shoes… Especially Those $540 Lanvin sneakers… Nice Image in Face of Depression… Let them wear Keds
Hot Air: Understanding Obamanomics: We’re gonna need a bigger graph and Obama’s “Honest Day’s Work” and Suddenly, business leaders fear Obama
bloghopenchangery: I survived the Obama’s NYC/Broadway “date night”!
About the author
And it goes on and on and on and they will not answer the phone if you call them, or ignore your requests to your representative in congress.
Right before we vote them out of office, we should contact them, and their staff and tell them you are now on the unemployment roles. Good Luck.
Do I sound vindictive ? yes !
Am I yes !