Update: The Globetrotting Congress
By Bluey Posted in Congress | Featured Stories — Comments (5) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
A couple weeks ago I wrote about the travel plans for members of Congress over their Easter vacation to places such as Egypt, Luxembourg and Trinidad & Tobago. Today in the Washington Examiner, reporter Charlie Hurt reveals more details -- including the names of some members who made the trips.
• "Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi took his wife, nine Democrats and two Republicans - Reps. Dan Lungren of California and Mike Rogers of Alabama - on a whirlwind tour of the Caribbean last week. After stops in Honduras and Mexico, they stopped in the U.S. Virgin Islands, where the delegation stayed at the five-star Caneel Bay resort."
• "Rep. Eliot Engel of New York squired his wife and four Democratic members to Grenada and Trinidad."
• "Traveling with Engel and his wife were Reps. Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y., Sheila Jackson-Lee, D-Tex., and Barbara Lee, D-Calif. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., who went to Belgium in a delegation led by Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., earlier in the week, also joined Engel’s Caribbean trip. She brought her husband with her."
• "Rep. Jim Oberstar, D-Minn., also led a trip to Belgium over the two-week Easter recess."
Of course, these trips came at the expense of taxpayers -- and during a time when Congress should have been at work on the Iraq supplemental, which has now lingered for 70 days since President Bush first requested it.
« Rep. Capuano's Newspeak for Censorship — Comments (5) | The Democrats, Medicare, and "Negotiating" Prices — Comments (6) »
Update: The Globetrotting Congress 5 Comments (0 topical, 5 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
Well, they actually did. Overseas junkets began with the establishment of U.S. military bases overseas in the wake of the Second World War. Democrats controlled the congress then. It was seen as a perk.
But please, let's not get self-righteous about it.
As to the budgeting, let's just get the cash to the troops.
"History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it"-Winston Churchill
tight, shouldn't these kinds of expenses be the ones that are cut first?
Using the "but somebody else did it" excuse is going to get old, especially when they are using military aircraft and military money to travel to exotic places, while they aren't passing the supplemental bill for our guys actually in the field.
So in the end I don't care who started it, but at this juncture in time, it isn't all that wise to keep doing it.
Getting upset about Democrats doing the CODEL thing is ratheir pointless. We did it all the time when we had the majority. Posting how bad they are doing CODEL's now that they are back in the majority is simply hypocritical.
Let's just not, and say we did.
"History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it"-Winston Churchill
visiting Iceland during the Cold War and never saw a Congressman or Senator. They were off golfing or salmon fishing while the staffers attended a brief or two. Even the staff schedule was light (2 hours or so of briefs each day). These are primarily R&R trips, with some fact finding thrown in to justify military transport. Another issue is the cost and redundancy of military flights. We often had to have CODEL alert aircraft (sometimes airborne alerts) dedicated for backups if the primary military aircraft had mechanical problems. One trip would involve many aircraft and crews and this was when we were still intercepting Russian aircraft.
I saw the same pattern years later at JTF-4, in Key West (responsible for the 'War on Drugs' in the -90's). CODELS would often visit, but principals would never visit the HQ or attend briefs. Plenty of late night information gathering at Key West watering holes though. Be advised, the official schedules would often indicate Senators and Congressmen attending briefings, but they would not actually show up.
Most of these folks are continually focused on raising funds for reelection - it's rare to find, in either party, a Congressman or Senator actually interested in international issues or military affairs. At least interested beyond how an issue will personally benefit themselves.
====
"Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm." -- James Madison
"Of course, these trips came at the expense of taxpayers -- and during a time when Congress should have been at work on the Iraq supplemental, which has now lingered for 70 days since President Bush first requested it."
Well, if they get it done before June they'll still beat the pace of the "Do-nothing" 109th Congress. Any reason the President can't include war money in the regular budget?