Posted on 08/05/2009 8:47:08 AM PDT by MissesBush
Last year, lawmakers excoriated the CEOs of the Big Three automakers for traveling to Washington, D.C., by private jet to attend a hearing about a possible bailout of their companies.
But apparently Congress is not philosophically averse to private air travel: At the end of July, the House approved nearly $200 million for the Air Force to buy three elite Gulfstream jets for ferrying top government officials and Members of Congress.
The Air Force had asked for one Gulfstream 550 jet (price tag: about $65 million) as part of an ongoing upgrade of its passenger air service.
But the House Appropriations Committee, at its own initiative, added to the 2010 Defense appropriations bill another $132 million for two more airplanes and specified that they be assigned to the D.C.-area units that carry Members of Congress, military brass and top government officials.
Because the Appropriations Committee viewed the additional aircraft as an expansion of an existing Defense Department program, it did not treat the money for two more planes as an earmark, and the legislation does not disclose which Member had requested the additional money.
An Appropriations Committee staffer said the military was already planning to replace its passenger fleet, and the committee “looked at the request and decided they should speed up the replacement.”
The Gulfstream G550 is a luxury business jet, which the company advertises as featuring long-range flight capacity that “easily links Washington, D.C., with Dubai, London with Singapore and Tokyo with Paris.” The company’s promotional materials say, “The cabin aboard the G550 combines productivity with exceptional comfort. It features up to four distinct living areas, three temperature zones, a choice of 12 floor plan configurations with seating for up to 18 passengers.”
The version Gulfstream sells to the military is reconfigured for the government with modest accommodations, not the luxury version sold to private customers, said a source familiar with the planes.
Rep. Sanford Bishop (D-Ga.) had submitted a request to the Appropriations Committee for a $70 million earmark for one airplane on behalf of Georgia-based Gulfstream, and Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) lists the airplane as one of the earmarks that he was asked to request, though his office said he never made the request to the Appropriations Committee.
“The committee saw fit to fund it at that level” without Kingston’s involvement, his spokesman said.
Bishop’s office did not return several calls requesting comment for this story.
Air Force spokesman Vincent King told Roll Call: “This line item provides funding to purchase C-37 aircraft. The C-37 is the military variant of the commercial Gulfstream 550 executive jet. C-37s provide executive airlift for senior U.S. government officials including Congress and combatant commanders.”
The language of the appropriations bill specifies that of the three aircraft, the Air Force will provide “one aircraft each for the 201st Airlift Squadron and the 89th Airlift Wing.” Both are based out of Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland.
The 89th Airlift Wing provides “global Special Air Mission (SAM) airlift, logistics, aerial port and communications for the President, Vice President, Combat Commanders, senior leaders and the global mobility system,” according to the Andrews Web site.
King told Roll Call, “the 201st Airlift Squadron provides short-notice worldwide transportation for the executive branch, Congressional Members, Department of Defense officials and high-ranking U.S. and foreign dignitaries.”
An Armed Forces Press Service news story from 2004 said that the 201st counted “U.S. Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert [R-Ill.] and [then-Senate Armed Services Chairman] John Warner [R-Va.] among its frequent flyers.”
Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, said if Congress wants to buy new jets for the comfort of top government officials, “I think that all needs to be justified on the merits. ... Certainly, lawmakers can fly — and many do fly — coach and business class.” While there may be reasons for flying on top-notch private jets, “it shouldn’t just be squeezed into the bill.”
Ellis said the airplanes are also part of a larger trend for the Appropriations Committee to simply decide that big-ticket items are program increases, not earmarks, so they require less public disclosure.
“The more that you push for transparency, the more of this stuff goes underneath the carpet,” Ellis said. While Congress has established new rules requiring greater transparency for earmarks, the Appropriations Committee is “the judge, jury and executioner over what is an earmark and what isn’t and how much information we get.”
But military analysts said the private jets, despite the high price tag, may be worth the money because of the security and efficiency they provide to high-ranking public officials.
Loren Thompson, defense analyst at the conservative Lexington Institute, said, “In the case of the VIP transport for the executive branch, you can easily explain the cost [of private travel] in terms of the risk of somebody being taken hostage or having their time wasted when a critical decision is pending.”
Thompson pointed out that the cost of the plane would be peanuts compared to the cost to the nation if a top official were taken hostage or harmed taking a commercial flight to a dangerous region of the world.
But Thompson also said that logic “applies to the top members of the executive branch more than it applies to the Member from the 13th district of Illinois.”
John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a defense information Web site, said military officials “need a long-range airplane — and [it’s] better to fly them on a small one than a big one.”
Pike said it is unreasonable to expect a three-star general and a staff of five people to attend meetings around the world with several stops in far-flung locales while traveling on commercial airlines.
Next Zero and our Congresscritters will be driving the streets in Mine Resistant Vehicles...at risk from the peasants.
More of our tax dollars at work
Elite jets for the elite.
These Kings and Queens can use public transportation like everyone else.
Gypses, Tramps & Thieves
VOTE AGAINST ALL INCUMBENTS
Keep in mind too these same Congresscritters refused to allow anymore funding of the F-22. But to ferry their precious rear ends around, the skies the limit! But I guess Pelosi set the precedent with her demands for Air Force jets to fly her to and fro, rather than that her superior self would have to fly commercial like the rest of us peasants.
I enjoyed plenty of government air travel on C-23 Sherpas...Wonder why they’re not good enough for these public serpents.
I fear that they will need to.
“Let them go Greyhound”
I’d be thrilled just to “let them go” period.
“Obama gonna pay my mortgage and get me one o’ them Gulfstreams!”
Some Animal Farm quotes that seem in line with what our congressional overlords are doing to the voting public.
“ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL, BUT SOME ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS”
- George Orwell, Animal Farm, Ch. 10
“No one believes more firmly than Comrade Napoleon that all animals are equal. He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions for yourselves. But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should we be?”
Animal Farm, Ch. 5
“All that year the animals worked like slaves. But they were happy in their work; they grudged no effort or sacrifice, well aware that everything they did was for the benefit of themselves and those of their kind who would come after them, and not for a pack of idle, thieving human beings.”
Animal Farm, Ch. 6
“they had come to a time when no one dared speak his mind, when fierce, growling dogs roamed everywhere, and when you had to watch your comrades torn to pieces after confessing to shocking crimes.” Chapter 7
“It had become usual to give Napoleon the credit for every successful achievement and every stroke of good fortune. You would often hear one hen remark to another, ‘Under the guidance of our Leader, Comrade Napoleon, I have laid five eggs in six days’; or two cows, enjoying a drink at the pool, would exclaim, ‘Thanks to the leadership of Comrade Napoleon, how excellent this water tastes!’
“Reading out the figures in a shrill, rapid voice, he proved to them in detail that they had more oats, more hay, more turnips than they had had in Jones’s day, that they worked shorter hours, that their drinking water was of better quality, that they lived longer, that a larger proportion of their young ones survived infancy, and that they had more straw in their stalls and suffered less from fleas.”
- George Orwell, Animal Farm, Ch. 9
You’ve hit on it.
The “ruling class” now see themselves as the “neo-nobility”.
AND
N O
M O R E
L A W Y E R S
IN
CONGRESS!!
Most of them don’t know enough to come in out of the rain but they sure as hell know how to construct rules and regs for all the rest of us.
Tupper Saussy traced the word “attorney” back to the Sanskrit word “torwa.” And what does torwa mean?
TO TWIST!!!!
How about we elect some regular folks with common sense, limit their terms to 4 or 6 years and NO FAT, LIFETIME, FULL-SALARY PENSIONS.
BUT, HOUSTON, WE STILL HAVE A PROBLEM!
What is to be done about the HILL RATS? These are the allegedly “professional” staffers who are so named because after the election their current boss loses, they scurry like rats to a new member – ANY MEMBER (his politics frequently don’t matter) – just to remain close to the power. Most are flaming liberals and, after the “experienced” staffer shows the new guy where the john is, because they have been up there for decades, far too many of these new members rely on them for how to vote and get along in the thoroughly corrupt system of “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” that has caused the mess in which we now find ourselves.
IT GETS WORSE!
Let’s say the new guy needs an “expert” on tax policy. Well, son-of-a-gun, the professional staffer JUST HAPPENS to have a college chum who works at the IRS! Need an “expert” on education policy. Darned if that secretary he just hired doesn’t just have an old teacher friend who works over at the Department of Education!
NOW YOU KNOW WHY THE MORE THINGS CHANGE, THE MORE THEY STAY THE SAME – ESPECIALLY IN MALFUNCTION JUNCTION. Looks like we will also need TENURE LIMITS on the Hill Rats with stiff penalties for breaking the rules!
TALK ABOUT UNMITIGATED, BLATANT HUBRIS !!!
One to be named “Pelosi Express”.
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