NEW YORK – With America’s economy in the gutter, lawmakers pledge to cut back—except, apparently, when it comes to fancy trips around the globe at the expense of taxpayers and special interests. Laura Colarusso reports on the troubling spike in congressional travel.
With gas prices pinching the wallet and the national debt mounting, members of Congress proclaim that they feel Americans’ pain and are committed to cutting back. Just not one of their favorite perks—globetrotting to far-flung locations at the expense of taxpayers and special interests.
Lawmakers’ trips are up sharply during the first five months of 2011, erasing any memory of Hill leaders pledging just last summer to rein in travel costs, a Daily Beast review of congressional trip reports shows.
The pledges of travel austerity have been replaced this spring with fresh images of lawmakers strolling down an ornate European street with their spouses or touring the Bosphorus by boat—all supposedly in the name of doing the people’s business.
Not a bad business if you can get it.
“This is an important issue for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that millions of dollars are spent on flying lawmakers all around the world,” says Craig Holman
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