(This post has been updated to add in the cost of Secretary Price’s travel on military jets: $500,000.)
As a member of Congress, Tom Price was a fiscal hawk. He begrudged every penny spent on the needs of poor people.
He also got into trouble for investing in health stocks while he was head of a committee that affected the price of health stocks. He should never have been confirmed, in light of his self-dealing and conflicts of interest.
As a cabinet secretary, he has hired private planes instead of flying on commercial flights. He has chartered jets to his vacation home and chartered jets to visit family.
He spent at least $400,000 on private charters. He has piously promised to reimburse the taxpayers only $52,000. Why only $52,000? Rachel Maddow explained tonight that he was repaying the cost of his “seat,” not the cost of the entire plane that he chartered. This is nonsense.
He also rode on military jets for his flights overseas, at a cost of $500,000 to taxpayers. In the past, the Secretary of Health and Human Services flew commercial jets. It is very expensive to fly in military jets. At the same time that he squandered taxpayer dollars on his travel, he was slashing jobs at HHS and pushing for legislation that would take health care away from millions of people.
This is corrupt.
Speak of hypocrisy, this is what his spokesperson said to cover his tracks:
“Last week, Price’s office explained that he had turned to chartered jets when needed for the most efficient and effective travel in managing his department and maintaining contact with the public. “This is Secretary Price, getting outside of D.C., making sure he is connected with the real American people,” said Charmaine Yoest, his assistant secretary for public affairs.”
The “real American people” are found in his vacation home and his son’s home.
This phony should be fired.
We know the Trump administration gutted the Office of Government Ethics. Other cabinet members have also chartered private jets while firing employees.
Say this for DeVos. She flies in her own private jet, and requires only a security detail that costs taxpayers $1 million a month.
Grifters.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Interior Secretary Zinke took $12,000 chartered flight home in oil executive’s plane, documents show…WaPo
Ryan Zinke chartered the flight from Las Vegas to near his home in Montana this summer, according to internal documents. The flight, along with private flights during a trip to the Virgin Islands, could propel the interior secretary into the growing debate over the costs of travel by Cabinet secretaries, some of whom have chosen expensive charter jets and military planes at high expense to taxpayers over the cheaper option of flying commercial.
The flight cost taxpayers $12,375, according to a Department of the Interior spokeswoman. Commercial airlines run daily flights between the two airports and charge as little as $300.
The oil executive who co-owns the plane through a holding company said he was not in control of the plane at the time.
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Hey. Give him a break. He was “not in control of the plane” (not the pilot) so had no control of the cost of the flight.
The pilot was undoubtedly doing all sorts of acrobatic stunts and taking sightseeing detours that wasted $12,075 in gas.
DAM out of control pilots. There oughta be a law…
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This ain’t a swamp it is a stinking cesspool . I better stop there . .
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What ever it is, drain it!
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No use in draining
It’s cesspools all the way down
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Private charter flights!? That rings a bell, there’s something so familiar about those words private and charter. Ah yes, privately run charter schools are flights of fancy of the billionaire jet setters as they gad about in their private charter flights from reality.
Sorry, I’m no Some Damned Poet.
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Ah, but you are.
All you need to do is put those thoughts to verse using Dr Seuss as a guru to guide you, my son.
Charters and fraud
Like jelly and toast
Reel and a rod
Casper and ghost 👻
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The Trump presidency and cabinet members are the first true Kakistocracy in American history. There have been some really bad, utterly corrupt politics in our past, but I don’t think that any of that can match what we are seeing today, relatively speaking. We have, or recently had more safeguards in place than in previous times, but this president has negated that by bringing with him and allowing to ride in on his coat tails the biggest bunch of grifters and parasites imaginable, and wants to add even more of them to his new DC cesspool. Just look at his choice for head scientist of the USDA, a right wing talk radio host who has no experience in or knowledge of either science or agriculture. But he did say nice things about Donnie before the election, so in he goes.
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Yes, they certainly are….
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The law says that the position at USDA must be filled by a scientist. Do you think Congress will hold hearings?
Maybe he should be Ambassador to the Court of St. James.
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“Maybe he should be Ambassador to the Court of St. James”.
Nah. I prefer Nambia. It’s been said that he speaks fluent Covfefe.
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His flights cost taxpayers a $million and now he just walks away. I’m assuming that is what happens. Screw taxpayers and smile.
…………………..
Price Resigns From Trump Cabinet Amid Private Jet Investigations
HHS Secretary Tom Price, who earned a reputation in the House as a budget hawk critical of government waste, resigned Friday after President Trump criticized him for chartering flights on private jets.
The work-related travel, which was first reported Sept. 19 by Politico, cost taxpayers nearly $1 million, or about $400,000 for private charters and $500,000 in military airplane costs. Most of the trips were between cities where inexpensive commercial flights were also available.
The revelations had sparked a flurry of criticism from government ethics watchdogs.
Sen. Patty Murray, the ranking Democrat on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which oversees some parts of Price’s agency, wrote an angry letter to the secretary on Thursday about his travel habits.
“The decision is particularly shocking as you serve in an administration that routinely calls for draconian spending cuts and a reduction in government waste, and you yourself have repeatedly advocated for fiscal restraint,” Murray wrote…
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“This phony should be fired.”
As a minumum, he should be jailed for a few years. How much do “real American people” get if they steal half a million from others? Are they told “hey pay back some, and we are okay”?
Our laws are strange, to say the least.
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Yeah. The other day I was sitting here reading the local paper and there was a short article about a guy who was found guilty of a non-violent property theft….no one was around when he did it….no huge amount of money was involved. Sure, I’d be mad if it was me who had been ripped off. But the man got 10 years in a state prison. Meanwhile, these so-called financial “masters of the universe” and their toadies just keep on pillaging our economy, And, so often, they just parachute out of the burning wrecks they create -passengers be damned. (Ahhh… nauseous flashback to John B. King’s “building the plane while we fly it” debacle here in NYS. I wonder where he’s at these days?)
Sure, this in no profound observation. But it just hit me when I saw that particular article how much this sort of thing is interwoven into the fabric of our culture. It’s all around us. People of privilege getting away with crap -and now, more so than ever.
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JOHN B King landed in clover as president of EdTrust, the Gates Funded outfit that advocates high stakes testing for minority’s kids
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Nothing strange about our laws when you consider they are made by the wealthy.
What would be strange under the existing campaign finance system is if our laws treated people equally.
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Mate,
Yes, prosecution is in order. He can’t claim “a rookie mistake.” He was following the example of Trump, who loots at will.
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Half a million is chicken feed.
Betsy DeVos spends that much public money on her security detail every two weeks.
Not that the latter is not completely justified.
As we all know, she is a VVIP, with people behind every school yard bush and in every broom closet ready to “ambush” her and ask her probing questions about grizzly bears in schools.
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Excellent, SomeDAM, as usual. I thank you.
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Quote: ‘… his travel tab has exceeded $1 million when accounting for both the overseas trips and the more than two dozen trips he has taken on private planes domestically since May….
………………………..
Price took military jets to Europe, Asia for over $500K
The White House approved the use of military aircraft for multi-national trips by Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price to Africa and Europe this spring, and to Asia in the summer, at a cost of more than $500,000 to taxpayers.
The overseas trips bring the total cost to taxpayers of Price’s travels to more than $1 million since May, according to a POLITICO review….
Nonetheless, his travel tab has exceeded $1 million when accounting for both the overseas trips and the more than two dozen trips he has taken on private planes domestically since May.
For instance, Price took a Gulfstream C-37B owned by the Department of Defense for a weeklong trip in late May through Africa and Europe. The six legs of travel, which represented about 30 hours of flight time, were projected to cost $311,418.25, according to an invoice reviewed by POLITICO.
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/09/28/tom-price-military-jets-europe-asia-hhs-243276
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In June, Zinke spent $12,000 on a charter flight in an oil executive’s jet, when commercial options were available for as cheap as $300.
And Pruitt has racked up nearly a million dollars himself in abusive spending since taking office. He has doubled his personal security detail, is constructing an unnecessary private soundproof office, and has spent nearly $58,000 worth of private chartered and military flights.
Zinke and Pruitt have taken this luxurious travel and unnecessary expenses and sent us, hardworking Americans, the bill. They are doing this at the same time they are proposing drastic cuts to vital programs that protect our air, water, communities, and public lands.
… This kind of fiscal irresponsibility has no place in top positions in our government.
Michael Bosse
Deputy National Program Director
Sierra Club
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