| | | Want to know why so many senators and congressman go on long foreign trips pretending to do official business? Easy: it's all about the Benjamins.
In Ukraine, for example, senators receive $338 in cash each day they're in Kiev. That's the official government per diem rate for food and lodging, which of course senators don't need to pay for because it's already provided by the federal agency trip planners (on your dime), along with their airfare.
Upon landing, they're each literally given an envelope of cash for their per diems. When Tom Coburn was a senator, he refused to accept the per diems on the account they were wasteful and unnecessary, and the agency flacks had no idea what to do because nobody had ever refused them before.
A single week-long trip to Kiev nets each traveling senator nearly $2,500, which doesn't include the cash or gold bars or diamonds they're accepting under the table. When lawmakers travel overseas on government planes, they also aren't required to go through customs or declare what they're bringing back or how much they're carrying in currency (or gold bars). Isn't that convenient?
If you've ever wondered why so many lawmakers seem to spend so much of their time going on "fact-finding" trips around the world, or why there's always some stupid picture of them in each country pretending to do something official to justify the trip, you no longer need to wonder. Like everything in Washington, it's always about the money.
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