2/18/19: Since our theme lately seems to be crooks and liars in the Trump administration, let’s not neglect the fiscal antics performed by E.P.A. head and Chief Climate Denier Scott Pruitt. It turns out any time Pruitt flies (and he flies more often than Mary Poppins) he goes first- or business-class.
Last June, Pruitt flew business-class, round-trip to Italy, at a cost to taxpayers of $7,000. CBS reported that the price for his ticket was “several times the cost of what was paid for other staffers who accompanied him on the trip.” They all sat in coach. Yet Pruitt claims he must fly at the front for “security reasons.” Pruitt is the first E.P.A. head ever to set up a full-time security detail to protect him, 24/7, from tree huggers and crying babies in the backs of planes.
Pruitt “also flew round trip between Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport and LaGuardia in New York on a shuttle flight costing $1,641.53. By contrast, the ticket for a staffer who flew with him cost $238.40.”
(This would seem to indicate Pruitt isn’t worried about
staffers being attacked or deafened by screaming children.)
On yet another occasion, Pruitt stuck taxpayers with a bill for $14,285.71 so he could take an 83-minute flight on a private jet, from Tulsa to Guymon, Oklahoma, in his home state. According to Google maps, the 326-mile trip would have taken just over five hours by car.
So, let me say, as a patriotic American, that the next time Pruitt wants to travel, I volunteer to chauffer him at a cost of $500 per hour in my Honda Civic. That would mean savings of thousands for the federal government right there.
I’ll even pay for gas and snacks if we stop.
Pruitt could keep me busy in retirement because the man dearly loves to travel. One trip, via private jet, from Cincinnati to New York City, cost $36,069.50. A ticket on a commercial flight the same day could have been had for $350.
One estimate puts the total cost to taxpayers for all these
unnecessary private and first-class flights by Pruitt at $200,000.
Other members of the Trump team who find themselves under a travel cloud include Energy Secretary Rick Perry and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin inquired about using a military jet to fly to Europe for his honeymoon. (At least that request was denied.)
And we might add: these esteemed gentlemen will have to keep jetting all over the world if they expect to break the record set by HHS Secretary Tom Price, who stuck taxpayers for nearly a million dollars in charter flight expenses before the president decided he had to be grounded.
To add insult to injury, Price’s hand-picked choice to lead the Center for Disease Control and Prevention was recently fired after it was shown she traded heavily in drug and tobacco stocks.
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Why fly cheap if taxpayers are footing the bill? |
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