Article...White House Travel Bill: $292 Million...
By Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 18, 2000; Page A02
washingtonpost.com
As President Clinton prepares to leave for Nigeria and Tanzania next week, a new government report shows that 159 foreign trips he and other administration officials took since 1997 have cost taxpayers at least $292 million.
The General Accounting Office review of administration air transport expenses was requested by six Republican senators. One of them, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), called the costs "exorbitant." His colleagues declined comment until the report, obtained by The Washington Post, is made public.
The White House said the type of travel expenses incurred for trips taken by Clinton – the most widely traveled of all presidents – were similar to the expenditures of former administrations. A spokesman accused the Republicans of requesting the report for partisan purposes.
The Department of Defense covers the vast bulk of the costs of foreign trips for the executive branch, providing two VC-25 jets that serve as Air Force One, a number of cargo jets and aircraft refueling. Other agencies cover the rest of the costs, which were not included in the report.
Clinton's 27 trips in the last three years account for 85 percent, or $247 million, of the total aircraft cost, according to the report, which is scheduled for release in September. Hillary Rodham Clinton's 20 trips make up 4 percent, or $12 million, of the cost. And Vice President Gore's eight trips total 4 percent, or $12.5 million, of the total.
No similar accounting exists for any previous administration, Republican or otherwise, GAO officials said. In fact, the Republicans did not request comparable data on previous administrations, suggesting last fall that such comparisons were "immaterial."
One expert noted that actual travel costs are likely significantly higher than reported because of expenses for Secret Service protection, which were not included in the tally. Nor were costs for lodging and other expenses.
In 1992 Clinton criticized his opponent, then-President George Bush, for trips abroad at a time when the country faced economic problems at home. Democrats at their national convention in New York wore T-shirts proclaiming "George Bush's around-the-world tour," which listed all the countries Bush had visited.
Yet Clinton and his Republican predecessor have comparable foreign travel records. Bush traveled to 50 countries over 86 days during his four years as president. Clinton in his first term visited 49 countries in 81 days. (President Ronald Reagan traveled to 25 countries in his eight-year tenure.)
Clinton has become the first president to visit Botswana, Bulgaria and the Balkans. He has seen a 200-year-old slave house near the coast of Senegal, walked the streets of Belfast in Northern Ireland, and chatted with students at Beijing University.
Next Friday, he will fly to Abuja, Nigeria, where he will meet with President Olusegun Obasanjo, to show support for Nigeria's fledgling democracy and Obasanjo's efforts to clean up the Nigerian military. Just this week, Clinton added Tanzania to his itinerary, accepting the invitation of former South African president Nelson Mandela to join him in the city of Arusha, where Mandela is facilitating the Burundi peace process. In Arusha, Clinton will meet with Tanzania's president, Benjamin Mkapa.
According to the GAO report, the single most expensive trip was Clinton's 11-day journey to India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Oman and Switzerland in March. Much of the $46.5 million transportation expense covered 146 cargo flights to ferry everything from trucks and communications equipment to the presidential limousine.
Traveling to the developing world is not easy, and with each additional stop, security and logistical challenges rise, along with costs. To guard against terrorist attacks, a decoy plane containing a Secret Service agent bearing a resemblance to the president was sent to Islamabad, Pakistan, before Clinton arrived in an unmarked jet (at $6,664 an hour to fly).
A visit to a Bangladeshi village was canceled for security reasons; instead, 300 villagers were bused to Dhaka to hear the president speak, an expense not included in the report.
Hillary Clinton's most expensive Pentagon travel bill was $2.3 million for a 12-day tour of North Africa with daughter Chelsea in March 1999, about the same as it cost to fly Gore to South Africa in February 1997 to meet with then-South African deputy president Thabo Mbeki.
The GAO report covers only transport costs billed to the Defense Department, and is a follow-up to a September 1999 draft report that detailed more than $72 million in federal spending on foreign presidential travel in 1998.
The $292 million air transport expense represents 1/30th of 1 percent of the roughly $870 billion spent by the Pentagon over the same period.
"It's healthy for the president to travel," Sessions said. "I'm not opposing him to travel. But we've been hearing about these exorbitant costs. This report validates those concerns. We do not have to spend a quarter of a billion dollars on presidential travel in three years. That's beyond what the taxpayers ought to bear."
In September, Sessions' colleague, Sen. Larry E. Craig (R-Idaho), singled out Clinton's six-nation tour of Africa in 1998 as an abuse. The trip, estimated to cost $42.8 million, involved more than 1,300 government officials who accompanied Clinton or preceded him as advance teams.
The White House defended the expenses as reasonable and valid. "These are some of the costs of advancing the cause of peace, stability, human rights and economic growth around the world that will continue to pay dividends for America and other nations for years to come," it said.
Spokesman Elliot Diringer noted that most of the travel cost is driven by "logistics, communications and security," not the number of travelers. "The marginal cost of additional staff accompanying the president is rather minuscule," he said.
But the actual total cost of foreign presidential travel is significantly greater than the GAO was able to report because of Secret Service expenses that are difficult to obtain, said Brad Patterson, author of a new book called "The White House Staff: Inside the West Wing and Beyond."
"There are dozens and dozens, maybe even hundreds of Secret Service agents that go on foreign trips," he said.
Some costs are standard, such as the hourly rate to fly Air Force One. When the president goes on long flights, for example, he takes a VC-25 jet, which is similar to a Boeing 747, but has more sophisticated communications and security equipment, and conference rooms.
The rate for flying Air Force One on the Pakistan trip was $54,100 an hour. By contrast, a commercial Boeing 747 jet costs about $7,000 an hour to fly, according to the trade publication Aviation Daily.
Tanzania will be the 68th country Clinton visits. Shortly after he returns, he will fly to Colombia for a day, to show support for President Andres Pastrana's efforts to combat drug trafficking. |
