Well, Treasury Secretary and foreclosure multimillionaire Steve Mnuchin isn’t the only member of Trump’s cabinet who feels entitled to private taxpayer funded air transportation. According to a Politico investigation, Health and Human Services Secretary, Tom Price, has been chartering private jets for months to travel around the country to promote republican plans to take away healthcare from millions of Americans.
In a sharp departure from his predecessors, Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price last week took private jets on five separate flights for official business, at a cost of tens of thousands of dollars more than commercial travel.
The secretary’s five flights, which were scheduled between Sept. 13 and Sept. 15, took him to a resort in Maine where he participated in a Q&A discussion with a health care industry CEO, and to community health centers in New Hampshire and Pennsylvania, according to internal HHS documents.
A spokesman for HHS explained to Politico why Secretary Price was justified in booking private charters:
“As part of the HHS mission to enhance and protect the health and well-being of the American people, Secretary Price travels on occasion outside Washington to meet face to face with the American people to hear their thoughts and concerns firsthand,” an HHS spokesperson said, adding, “When commercial aircraft cannot reasonably accommodate travel requirements, charter aircraft can be used for official travel.”
Luckily for us, Dan Diamond and Rachana Pradhan of Politico meticulously documented Price’s travel itinerary from September 13-15. They researched the feasibility and availability of commercial flights, Amtrak commuter trains, and even car travel alternatives that would have delivered Secretary Price and his entourage to their destinations on time for a fraction of the cost.
. . . On one leg of the trip – a sprint from Dulles International Airport to Philadelphia International Airport, a distance of 135 miles – there was a commercial flight that departed at roughly the same time: Price’s charter left Dulles at 8:27 a.m., and a United Airlines flight departed for Philadelphia at 8:22 a.m., according to airport records.
Seats on the United flight booked on short notice through United’s website ranged from $447 to $725 per person. Compare that to the roughly $25,000 charge for Price and about ten companions to fly in style on an Embraer 135LR owned by Ultimate Jet Charters.
But wait, there’s more!
In addition, Amtrak ran four trains starting at 7 a.m. that left Washington’s Union Station and arrived at Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station no later than 9:58 a.m. The least-expensive ticket, on the 7:25 a.m. train, costs $72 when booked in advance. It is just a 125-mile drive from HHS headquarters in downtown Washington to the Mirmont Treatment Center outside of Philadelphia, where Price spoke. Google Maps estimates the drive as about two-and-a-half hours. A one-way trip was estimated by travel planners to be about $30 in gasoline per SUV plus no more than $16 in tolls.
What makes this misuse of taxpayer funds even more appalling is that Tom Price, a former U.S. Congressman from Georgia, spent his career preaching against government spending. As HHS Secretary, he has refused to release funds already budgeted for ACA education and outreach, and is developing a plan to cut costs at the agency as directed by President Trump.
On twitter, after the Politico story dropped, evidence of Price’s hypocrisy was quickly dug up (Gotta love social media!)
Walter Schaub, Former Director of the Office of Government Ethics (who resigned in the early months of the Trump’s administration) made the case in the article that while the chartering of private jets by government officials isn’t illegal, the manner in which Price did it “reflects disdain for the ethical principle of treating public service as a public trust.” And that, “Public office isn’t supposed to come with frivolous perks at taxpayer expense.”
Which is a good place to leave this: