Flying Miss Nancy
Posted 8/5/2009
Washington: The Democrat-controlled House wants to buy nearly $200 million
worth of private jets so lawmakers and a few high-level bureaucrats can
travel in style. We truly have an imperial Congress.Just last week
Washington announced it would cut $100 million from the federal
administrative budgets and acted like that was some big achievement. Now
this week we learn that about the same time those cuts were made public, the
House OK'd the purchase of the private jets.
The taxpayer money the House plans to spend is to be used to buy three
Gulfstream G550s at roughly $65 million each. These are long-range business
jets with large, palatial interiors and three temperature zones. Company
literature says the "impeccably equipped cabin" of a G550 offers
"best-in-class comforts" and can be configured "with up to four living
areas."
"At Gulfstream," the company says, "we have anticipated your every need."
Sounds like just the sort of plane the House speaker, Senate majority leader
and their extended entourages could enjoy on a nonstop junket to Asia - or
merely for a quick turnaround to visit constituents in San Francisco or Las
Vegas.
The notion that some lawmakers feel it beneath their dignity to travel with
the masses on commercial jets is nothing new. But news of the House plan
does bring to mind three salient facts, all of which the Democratic
leadership hopes the public does not think of in relation to the jet
purchase.
Congress isn't short of hypocrisy. Most of the Democrats and their
environmentalist allies are reflexively opposed to private jet travel
because of its excessive carbon footprint. Or, at least, they are opposed to
private jet travel for others.
Neither does it recognize irony. CEOs of the Big Three automakers were
excoriated for traveling in their private jets last year to testify in
Washington.
And some have an outsized sense of privilege. In 2007, just a month into the
new Democratic majority, Speaker Nancy Pelosi asked that taxpayers provide a
jet that could make a nonstop flight to her Bay Area district. She
reportedly wanted a luxury, stateroom-outfitted version of Boeing's 757-200
like those the vice president, first lady and Cabinet officials fly on.
And there was a lot of foot-stamping when the Bush White House said no.
At least one of the three jets approved by the House will be sent to the Air
Force's 201st Airlift Squadron, which, among other duties, shuttles members
of Congress.
It seems Pelosi One might yet get off the ground. |
