Posted on 04/05/2012 1:36:56 PM PDT by Free ThinkerNY
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has commuted on military aircraft to his home in northern California more than two dozen times since he took over the Pentagon in July, paying about $630 per trip for a roundtrip flight that costs the Pentagon about $32,000.
The totals detailed by defense officials lay out his reimbursements for the first time, showing he paid the Treasury about $17,000 for the 27 personal trips. Based on fuel and other operating expenses for his Air Force plane, those same trips cost the government as much as $860,000.
(Excerpt) Read more at hosted.ap.org ...
That makes sense. SecDef (second in command of the armed forces) has to be able to respond immediately to commands from POTUS. He can’t do that if he is in the middle of a commercial flight.
And it would be ludicrous to make him pay for the actual cost of the whole command and control aircraft he has to fly in. So he subsidizes the government by the amount a commercial ticket would have cost.
http://cryptome.org/eyeball/secdef-air/secdef-air.htm
Still better than Queen Pelosi and her numerous flights for her Children Grandchildren with taxpayer funded booze.....
That is a bunch of bullchit. He doesn’t need to go back to California that often. I don’t give a rats who he is. Bush made 77 visits to his ranch in 8 years. Panetta took over at the Pentagon July of 2011.
If he can’t stay in Washington to do his job, he needs to resign. If evil corporate business men don’t need to fly on their private jets, then Panetta darn sure doesn’t need to be flying on our dime!
He lives in Monterey, which is in the Bay Area, not Northern California. Typical ignorant and lazy press these days.
does he take a staff with him? do they pay their part also?
Which Bay Area is you talkin’ ‘bout? The Monterey Bay Area or the San Francisco Bay Area? They’re both in northern California; although Monterey is more on the central coast.
No because that’s their job. The need for the secdef to pay the government back is for personal trips back home where he would otherwise just hop on an airliner and go home. But he isn’t allowed to do that. His airborne support staff has to be with him to be able to execute orders if the President decides to do something.
It may not be as it appears. I took military flights from Jordan to Germany when I was working in the RSO in Amman. Cost me 10 bucks to hop that flight. The flights were scheduled in monthly to ressuply the American store and embassy of food and other assorted products. Whether I took the flights or not, they were coming and going.
When he goes home, he flies on the Air Force version of a Gulfstream executive jet, which also carries communications gear.
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/sep/01/nation/la-na-panetta-home-20110902
Home??? As a peon, our family moved wherever the “company” relocated the breadwinner: both Daddy & Hubby. The shareholders would not be happy paying for trips home. Home is where the job is!
All the counties contiguous to the San Francisco Bay are "The Bay Area" (unless you are from Los Angeles in which case everything past Bakersfield is "Northern California.") Northern California consists of the Counties NORTH of the BAY AREA and the CENTRAL VALLEY.
Panetta and his former Congressional District have always been part of Bay Area regional politics because it has usually included Santa Clara County. Nothing about Panetta or his district however has ever come close to any Northern California County.
I wonder how much "Grandma" Pelousy's trips back home cost taxpayer's when she was Speaker?
Old Frequent-Flyer Leon......We have Soldiers who have done a few deployments to combat zones and this chickenshit can’t be bothered to move his home to Washington, D.C.. Why don’t we fly all our Soldiers home from Afghanistan on the weekends? If the dumbass secretary of defense has to be home to put on his special favorite slippers on the weekend, why can’t the troops come home, too?
I might not have a problem with it, until I recall how John Sununu was treated. The Dems wanted the Cief of Staff to fly commercial. They even got on his case when he just hired a driver.
He’s flying too much.
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