One reason congressional leaders are so intent on getting the economic stimulus bill passed as quickly as possible this week is that many of them are leaving town on junkets. You remember junkets, those tax-paid sight-seeing tours masquerading as trips for official business.
Al Kamen at The Washington Post, had an excellent piece yesterday on one of the more prominent trips about to be made, noting that:
“On Saturday, Rep. John Tanner (D-Tenn.), chairman of the House delegation to NATO’s parliamentary assembly, and his wife will lead a delegation of 13 lawmakers — plus 10 spouses — on a fine nine-day jaunt starting at NATO’s headquarters in Brussels.
“Before you start scoffing about how this hardly compares to Tanner’s post-election delegation to Valencia and Rome in November, we would point out that the next stop is, yes, the City of Lights, Paris, where one could have a nice late Valentine’s Day moment.
“From there, we move on to Vienna for a little Sacher torte and then to review NATO’s strategy to defend the Bavarian Alps, stopping in the lovely ski center of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, with its breathtaking views.
“The huge number of members, spouses and staffers, plus military escorts, will require taking one of the bigger military jets, but we’re told these trips are an important use of taxpayer money.”
Of course the trip is for vitally important official business that can be accomplished in no other way!
Kamen goes on to name the Members scheduled for the junket:
“The delegation is scheduled to include Democratic Reps. Ben Chandler (Ky.); Bart Gordon (Tenn.); Baron P. Hill (Ind.) Carolyn McCarthy (N.Y.); Kendrick B. Meek (Fla.); Charlie Melancon (La.); Dennis Moore (Kan.) Mike Ross (Ark.) and David Scott (Ga.). Republican Reps. John Boozman (Ark.); Jo Ann Emerson (Mo.) and Jeff Miller (Fla.) are also scheduled to be going.”
Note those last three Republicans. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader John Boehner should ban their caucus members from joining any tax-paid trip overseas.
In one swoop, GOPers would put the spotlight on Democratic abuses of the taxpayers and regain another chunk of higher ground for credibly arguing only the Republicans can clean up the stinking ethical mud pit that has become the Congress of the United States.
This is the kind of simple, decisive, easy-to-grasp move that is required for restoring the congressional Republicans’ credibility with voters. Actions – banning tax-paid junkets regardless whether Democrats do the same – speak far louder than words. And nobody believes the words of most congressional Republicans these days.
Of course, the congressional GOPers should do the same thing on earmarks. But neither Boehner, who has never sponsored an earmark, nor McConnell, who has sponsored many, had the stomach to seek such a ban, knowing as they did that too many of their Republican colleagues are just as addicted to pork barrel spending as anybody on the Democratic side.
