As a longtime critic of congressional junkets and travel, I am a bit confused by the effusion of shock and contempt by our congressional leaders in both parties over the recent Nevada conference by GSA employees. There is no question that the conference was outrageous and an abuse. However, these are the same people who have spent hundreds of millions on trips that have long been denounced as little more than paid vacations and long fought for the right to be wined and dined by lobbyists and other interests at swank hotels and restaurants (here and here and here). In the meantime, recent reports show that Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has cost the taxpayers $860,000 to fly back and forth on weekends to his home in California. That is almost the exact amount spent at the Nevada conference. They sound like a city of Claude Rains, “shocked, shocked” by the allegations as they rush to make their private flights on government aircraft.
Continue reading “Stones Fly In City Of Glass Houses: Congress and the White House”
