Carpe per diem

The Wall Street Journal this morning has a followup on its March expose of Congressional chiseling on per diem travel allowances. In an era of trillion-dollar deficits, the money isn't even a rounding error, but the reactions of the Congressfolk are worth reading. My favorite is Texas representative Solomon Ortiz: if not for the chance to pocket a few extra dollars, he says, "you could never get many members traveling." A paid vacation, transportation in Air Force planes, and concierge service provided by the military: they pale beside the $25 a day in pocket money that one can collect by touring Kabul. Blue skies! -- Dan Ford

On being elite

Sarah Lyall has one of those delightful gotcha! stories in the NYT this morning: 'Elections Looming, Tories Put Posh Foot in Mouth'. It seems that Sir Nicholas Winterton, a Conservative MP, doesn't think he should have to ride coach class with the peasants. How impossibly elitist! As Ms Lyall, in the Gray Lady's best non-judgmental prose, puts it: the Tories must shed 'their old chilly image as a stuffy bastion of the elite, the mean-spirited, the entitled and the clueless.'

But half a mo', as the lower classes in England used to say--what American Congressman would ever dream of traveling coach? Or by train, for that matter? Or by public transport, if you rank high enough? Take that gang in the celebratory photo below: It wasn't so long ago that Nancy Pelosi was demanding a larger military jet to speed her travels between Washington and California--one that wouldn't have to stop to refuel midway. Blue skies! -- Dan Ford

Keep the change, Congressman!

The contemptible folk who write our laws (and who now want to determine whether, like President Obama, the rest of us are eligible for a virtual colonoscopy) have a particularly unpleasant habit of jetting about the world at the taxpayers' expense. Yesterday the Wall Street Journal wrote about the small-change aspect of these junkets. It seems that the Congressperson gets a per diem allowance, ranging from $28 in Kabul to $214 in Tokyo, to pay for his or her meals. (Actually, it ought to be the other way around: $28 in Tokyo, $214 in Kabul, to encourage the cheapskate Congressfolk to visit the city more important to America's near-term future.)

If you don't spend the money, of course, you're supposed to return it to the Treasury. The Journal managed to find one Congressman who does just that, so two cheers for Senator Arlen Specter, once a Republican, now a Democrat, who has returned $8,500 of the $25,000 per-diem money he was given for 11 trips over the past five and one-half years. But he seems to be the exception. More typical is Representative Solomon Ortiz, a Democrat, who not only doesn't return the leftover money but doesn't think he ought to: "If that was the policy," he told the Journal, "you could never get many members traveling."

I wonder if Mr Ortiz's Texas constituents could get away with arguing that line to the IRS when they fudge on their expense accounts? Blue skies! -- Dan Ford

Living high on the taxpayer's dime

Though Congress (and the president) like to bash Wall Street bankers for their pay and bonus packages, that doesn't stop them from dipping into the public trough on their own account. Writing in the Wall Street Journal yesterday, Brody Mullins and T.W. Farnam give a delightful account of one Congressional junket to Scotland:

'EDINBURGH -- The expenses racked up by U.S. lawmakers traveling here for a conference last month included one for the "control room."

'Besides rooms for sleeping, the 12 members of the House of Representatives rented their hotel's fireplace-equipped presidential suite and two adjacent rooms. The hotel cleared out the beds and ... set up a bar, a snack room and office space. The three extra rooms -- stocked with liquor, Coors beer, chips and salsa, sandwiches, Mrs. Fields cookies and York Peppermint Patties -- cost a total of about $1,500 a night. They were rented for five nights.

'While in Scotland, the House members toured historic buildings. Some shopped for Scotch whisky and visited the hotel spa. They capped the trip with a dinner at one of the region's finest restaurants, paid for by the legislators, who got $118 daily stipends for meals and incidentals.

'Eleven of the 12 legislators then left the five-day conference two days early.'

These foreign junkets cost us $13,000,000 last year, and note that 'The $13 million didn't include the expense of flying on Air Force planes, which lawmakers don't have to disclose.' Nor does it include the cost of the uniformed military aides who accompany the Congressfolk and grease their way around the world. Blue skies! -- Dan Ford

Guess who’s upset about buying new jets for Congress?

Congress’s plan to double the Pentagon’s request for new luxury liners, the better to junket around the world at taxpayers’ expense, has now come to the notice of (are you ready?) the United States Senate.

‘The whole thing kind of makes me sick to my stomach’, says Missouri’s Claire McCaskill. Good for her, though her outrage does come at a suspiciously appropriate time, now that others are taking notice of how Congress spends their money. Blue skies! – Dan Ford

Congress si, Detroit no!

Earlier, I quoted Bill Lind about the Pentagon drones who keep buying marvelous and increasingly expensive new weapons. So it’s only fair to note that the Pentagon is a tightwad compared to the Congress. According to Roll Call, the US Air Force wanted to buy a Gulfstream bizjet for $65 million, the better to ferry Congressfolk on their vacation trips—er, junkets—er, fact-finding missions. Far from being delighted, some anonymous Congressman inserted an earmark to make that three Gulfstreams, at a cost of about $200 million.

And that’s not all! The Wall Street Journal reports that in addition to the Gulfstreams, a bunch of Boeing 737s are also in play. The Pentagon wanted to buy one of the business-class airliners (more luxurious by far than the version you fly!) plus two that it previously leased. The same or another Congressman inserted an earmark to make that five Boeings. Total cost: about $550 million. Grand total of Air Force planes dedicated to carting the Washington elite from place to place: close to thirty.

That may seem chump change in an era of trillion-dollar deficits, but does make one wonder: how come the Congressfolk were so upset last fall when the executives of General Motors and Chrysler flew down to Washington in company bizjets? They were so humiliated that, the next time they were summoned, they arrived in Detroit-built SUVs. Blue skies! – Dan Ford

brother, can you spare a ride?

I've had a lot of fun at the expense of the Detroit Three and their profligate ways, including with executive jets. Well, it seems that GM is turning back two of its five airplanes (not selling them, as the headline claims--the planes are leased, not owned). Meanwhile, in the Wall Street Journal, Fay Vincent points out that the biggest critics of the corporate jet are also addicted to using them. Nancy Pelosi for example wanted a military plane that could fly her nonstop from Washington to California without stopping to refuel (security concerns, you know). Congressmen "routinely cadge rides on company jets," Mr. Fay points out, "and when they travel overseas on their fact-finding junkets they ride on military jets well cosseted by uniformed support.... Do you think any member of Congress or the Senate has been to Iraq on a commercial jet? Of course not. Never."

Blue skies! -- Dan Ford