Ten members of Congress spent $500,000 – according to Wall Street Journal estimates – on an 11-day global warming fact finding mission over New Year’s 2008.
Naturally, they couldn’t study global warming without their wives, so six spouses also went on the trip to Antarctica, Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, and Hawaii.
The trip, a bipartisan boondoggle led by Washington’s Democrat Congressman Brian Baird “officially” cost taxpayers $103,000. The entourage included six Democrats and four Republicans.
“That figure, however, doesn’t include the actual flying,” the Journal reports, “because the trip used the Air Force planes, not commercial carriers. Flight costs would lift the total tab to more than $500,000, based on Defense Department figures for aircraft per-hour operating costs.”
According to congressional travel disclosure forms, these clowns ran through $50,000 during their two-day stay in Australia, including $32,000 on hotels and meals, another $7000 on transportation, and a further $10,000 on what they call “other purposes.” (Hookers? Drugs? T-shirts that say, “My parents went to the Great Barrier Reef to study global warming and all I got was this lousy T-shirt”? Who knows?)
Keep in mind, these expenses were on top of the overly-generous $350 per day lawmakers have voted themselves for “incidentals” on overseas trips.
“The trip we made was more valuable than 100 hearings,” Baird said. “Are there members of Congress who take trips somewhat recreationally? Perhaps. Is this what this trip was about? Absolutely not.”
The Wall Street Journal reports breezes past the cost of the Australian leg of this journey without commenting on how extraordinarily expensive it was. $32,000 for hotels for ten congressmen for two nights works out to $1600 per night. We assume they weren’t staying at Motel 6.
As the Wall Street Journal noted, “Mr. Baird said the travel report for Australia was inaccurate. His spokesman didn’t respond to requests for details.”
Please note the names on the attached chart and remember them the next time you enter a voting booth.
The greedy bastards think we work for them. Vote them all out. Democrats. Republicans. All of them.
Source: Wall Street Journal
