Tax Dollars Funding Luxury Travel?

Posted by Damozel & Crux |  The Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently found that "the federal government spent over $230 million on about 53,000 premium class [airline] tickets from July 1, 2005 through June 30, 2006 -- and $146 million of it was for improper premium-class travel" (i.e., unjustified or improperly authorized). Would government employees have spent less if it were their own money? 

Every hundred-million saved would help, given that our national debt exceeds $9 trillion. President Bush wants another $190 billion for wars, and he just vetoed funding increases for children's healthcare (SCHIPS) claiming fiscal reasons (though in July, he said he opposed SCHIPS to protect private insurance companies).

"Premium class tickets are costly," explains the GAO with wonderful restraint.  Perhaps the unnamed Dept. of Agriculture official who flew business class from DC to Zurich for 7,500 tax dollars (instead of the $900 that a coach seat cost) didn't realize that those few hours of extra comfort cost eight times more. (GAO )   Below are a few other examples.

Note: some of these government officials have spent more tax dollars in one year on premium-class travel than many Americans earn.  Also, the GAO report did not include all incidents of improper or abusive travel-spending but rather a sampling. 

"A senior executive at FAS [Foreign Agricultural Services] took 10 premium class trips from Washington, D.C. to... Western Europe from July 1, 2005, through September 30, 2006. In violation of USDA’s policies and procedures, these trips were authorized by the executive’s subordinate—tantamount to self-authorization. These tickets were not only improper, but because these tickets totaled more than $62,000 compared to less than $9,000 in coach, the $53,000 difference between business and coach class travel was abusive....

"A group of 21 employees from the Office of the United States Trade Representative traveled from Washington, D.C. to Hong Kong to attend an international trade meeting. These tickets, which were purchased in business class, cost about $100,000 compared to just $32,000 if these individuals had flown coach. No document existed that authorized these employees for premium class travel....

"One DOD [Defense Department] traveler flew 15 times in premium class costing the government over $100,000 from July 1, 2005, through September 30, 2006. According to the travel orders for these trips, the official had a medical condition that justified the majority of the trips. However, the medical justification provided by DOD was a letter signed by a DOD employee citing a non-life-changing surgery that occurred in 2001."   (GAO, emphasis added)

It gets worse.  "Many agencies" told the GAO that they simply don't track business-class travel, which accounted for 96% of all premium-class travel.  Also, the White House's Office of Management and Budget ddi not require executive-branch employees to report business-class travel (neither did the General Services Administration).  For even more "case studies" by the GAO, check out 13 Examples of Taxpayer-Funded Luxury Travel for Bureaucrats.

The upshot: we taxpayers have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on cushy travel that could have been spent on things like education, healthcare, national security.... 

[See also GAO, Full Report #07-1268 (50 pages).]

Other  Waste-Related BN-Politics Posts:

* Contractor Fraud: Driving Up Healthcare Costs?

* How the Energy Dept. Incinerated Tax Dollars

* New Orleans Still Suffering after 2 Years and Billions of Tax Dollars

* Billions over Baghdad: Poor Accounting Allowed Waste & Fraud

* Officials Allowed Oil Companies to Underpay Royalties Owed to Taxpayers

* Defense Dept. Rewarding Bad Contractor Performance?

* How the Defense Dept. Flushes Dollars Down Latrine

* Gov. Contractors: Driving up War's Costs

* Time for Pentagon to Get Serious about Contractor Fraud

Comments

[Zach]

It's good to see our tax dollars are being well-spent by those fiscally conservative Republicans!

[Kendra]

i'm outraged after reading this! it's absolutely ridiculous that they are getting away with this! they should all have to pay it back in my opinion.

[Buck Naked Politics]

Zach and Kendra,

I share your sentiments. Thanks for dropping in.