Adele Ferguson - Aug. 20, 2009

WELL, WE FINALLY won one. We the taxpayers, that is.

House leaders have backed off from their plan to spend $550 million on eight new Air Force jet passenger planes for use by themselves and other government officials, which was twice as many planes as the president and the Department of Defense asked for. They had added the money to the Defense budget just before leaving for the August recess. They hadn’t reckoned, however, with the angry uprising of their constituents who, many jobless, bankrupt or about to be homeless, flocked to town hail meetings for face to face confrontations with their members of Congress.

It’s bad enough they were passing bills without reading them and pushing a health care bill that was Pandora’s box which, you’ll remember, contained all human ills that escaped once it was opened. Buying a bunch of planes so Congress members wouldn’t have to fly commercial just didn’t set well with them.

Even the Defense Department complained, saying spending the extra money on more passenger jets took it away from where it was needed. After all, there still is a war going on in Afghanistan. The pols got the message. Now they’ll buy only four, a Gulfstream V. and three Boeing 737 business jets.

That is on top of the two dozen passenger jets already maintained by the Air Force for these folks to get from one place to the other. It isn’t as if they are flying to remote spots not served by commercial airlines. In fact, travel has to be approved by congressional committees and, once approved, whatever lawmaker is leading the delegation makes the decision on whether to fly commercial or request a business jet from Defense.

FOREIGN TRAVEL by members of Congress and their staffs is on the increase, according to the Wall Street Journal which did an analysis of congressional records. Last year, House members spent about 3,000 days overseas on taxpayer funded trips, up from about 550 in 1995. Cost to the taxpayers was $13 million. Lawmakers usually fly on military jets where members of the Armed Services tote their bags and mix their drinks. On the military jets, lawmakers can bring their wives along at no cost.

Congressional recesses, however, when members are expected to go home and reconnect with their constituents, often bring the availability of the jets to the edge. With the shop shut down until after Labor Day, there are 11 separate congressional delegations making a trip to Germany. I asked why and was told Germany actually was the first landing and then jumping off place for trips to the Middle East.

Are these trips necessary? Oh, for sure.

“The trip we made was more valuable than 100 hearings,” said Rep. Brian Baird, D-Wa., leader of a group of 10 members and six wives whose mission was to study climate change. They went snorkeling at the Great Barrier Reef, rode a cable car through the Australian rain forest, visited a penguin rookery and flew up to the South Pole over New Year’s 2008.

ANOTHER STUDY on congressional travel, this one by USA Today, reports that members have cut by 60 percent the number of trips they take at the expense of special interest groups. That means instead of some defense contractor or corporation picking up the tab, it’ll be you and me. Once members get the travel bug, like the Energizer Bunny, they keep going and going and going.

A separate item in the budget, by the way, was $485 million toward new presidential helicopters. With the president in the air almost daily in Air Force One, they’ll probably need a new one of those before be goes out of office, whenever that turns out to be.

(Adele Ferguson can be reached at P.O. Box 69, Hansville, Wa., 98340.)