US government travels can be lavish despite ecomony
Reports are that the US government in a time of critical economic meltdown is not always feeling the heat from travel plans, according to newspaper reports.
“From an extra day’s hotel stay so military officials can fit in a round of golf to federal workers who fly business class instead of coach, questionable travel expenditures have remained a persistent problem across the federal government in recent years, “ says the Washington Times.
At the State Department, for example, nearly 80 percent of the more than US$300,000 in airfare reviewed at one little-known office in fiscal 2007 and 2008 went to pay for business-class airline tickets, and many of those purchases violated federal travel policy.
“One senior manager at the National Science Foundation took or extended taxpayer-funded trips totaling more than $10,000 to facilitate liaisons with women in Paris, Tokyo and Vancouver,” says the newspaper.
“The Washington Times obtained information about these and dozens of other internal travel-related investigations through Freedom of Information Act requests to federal agencies across government, as well as a review of public reports, audits and court records,” the newspaper said.
Even after a 2007 congressional probe uncovered millions of dollars in wasteful travel, lawmakers and the public do not know the full extent of the problem because of a lack of "timely and comprehensive information" about travel, according to an analysis last year by the Congressional Research Service.
"Agencies have rules on the books, but the rules are only as good as their enforcement," said Sen. Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee.
"The frequency and excessive costs of these trips reflect the government-wide ethos that it isn’t their money, so they don’t need to exercise any prudence when spending it," said Leslie Paige, a spokeswoman for the nonpartisan Citizens Against Government Waste.
By Jack Coolbroth
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