Posted on 08/07/2009 8:34:53 AM PDT by markomalley
Relations between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and the Department of Defense grew testy last year when the Pentagon couldn't come up with the aircraft she wanted for congressional travel. But this year the House has a $132 million solution: buy the Air Force more executive jets so Congress can take more junkets.
Roll Call newspaper reports the addition of two unasked-for new Gulfstream 550 jets to the executive aircraft stable at nearby Andrews Air Force Base. It is not even considered an earmark under the rules of the House, just an "expansion" of an existing Air Force mission.
But it isn't hard to trace the influence of House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman John Murtha, D-Pa. When Ms. Pelosi's demands first surfaced in 2007, Mr. Murtha said the Pentagon was making a "mistake" by being uncooperative.
With Rep. Murtha leaning hard on the Pentagon from his position of control over defense spending, the legislative demands got quite aggressive last year. Judicial Watch, a non-profit watchdog group, earlier this year published an e-mail in which a Pelosi staffer complained, "It is my understanding there are no G5s available for the House during the Memorial Day recess. This is totally unacceptable. ... The speaker will want to know where the planes are."
The main purpose of the executive aircraft fleet is to ferry top-ranking executive officials from the White House, the Pentagon and the State Department on official missions. But Congress increasingly demands military transportation for itself. When Congress is using the aircraft, they are not available for other official business.
The Judicial Watch e-mail trove disclosed that members of Congress prefer to travel on military jets rather than commercial airlines because they can frequently take their spouses along free on the Pentagon's planes but can't get reimbursed by Congress for the cost of commercial spousal travel.
In particular, Speaker Pelosi gets the use of a high-speed, long-range, 12-passenger Air Force executive jet when she wants to visit her home in San Francisco. The 12-hour round trip costs the government more than $100,000.
In 2007 and 2008 Ms. Pelosi flew more than 20 Washington-San Francisco round trips, costing the taxpayer more than $2 million. She was often accompanied by husband Paul, who flew free, and by one or more of their adult children, who paid the government the price of a standard economy-class round-trip ticket costing several hundred dollars.
The wasteful purchase of two more executive jets for the Pentagon will only make this kind of congressional excess more common. The Senate should kill the item when it takes up the Defense spending bill.
The royal barges for Nancy, one simply would not do. She must have a fleet.
She has all kinds of money. She should buy her own plane to travel with. Cheap B itch.
She has to fly to CA. non-stop.She doesn’t want to stop to refuel in Nazi occupied territory!
they configure those aircraft to carry weapons, they can be used to provide close air support at townhall meetings
That piece of Communist rubbish should take the Bus.
They canceled the F-22 so there would be enough [borrowed Chinese] money for Nancy’s flying throne-rooms.
This is outrageous! We need to demand a stop to this nonsense!
If I had my editing software on this computer, I could make a hell of a flying toilet GIF based on your statement!
LOL
I believe that having members of a bankrupt Congress who keep asking for bailouts fly on private jets sets a bad example for America. Out of respect for the taxpayers who pay these bailouts, they should fly economy.
Yes, she might meet up with a mob carrying swastikas. };>)
Will you, on every flight, be offering all empty seats on the Gulfstream flights to Military personnel headed to your destination and/or to military families who might be visiting wounded servicepeople at military hospitals in the DC area?
.
Why, they spend DAYS with LAWYERS reading bills and sweating over the details so you can have all your needs addressed! Back off, you evil, heartless thugs! They NEED these few small benefits so they can continue to tireless transform this nation from one of takers into one of givers!
/sarc
I know this looks like a bad deal, but they ARE going to get $4500 for every Gulfstream IV they trade in. Be reasonable.
And what does the new Gulfstream 5 do to her carbon footprint and how many carbon credits are used for the queen?
Today’s Wall Street Journal has a page one article that has the cost of Pelosi’s ride at $500 million. Read it and weep or call your US Senators as their OK is still needed to get the jets delivered.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124960404730212955.html
Let us not forget that these same people made a huge show about the “evil” corporate executives using similar aircraft at the expense of the “misguided and poor” mom and pop investors...
There is nothing which is too good for the comrades.
OMHO
I have an idea, let these jets come out of the Congressional Office budget
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