While We Are Told to Sacrifice, Congress Travels the World at Taxpayer Expense

  It seems that we are constantly being told by this administration that we have to sacrifice. We need to sacrifice to stop global warming and we have to sacrifice for healthcare, the list goes on and on. But their is one group of people who don’t seem to feel that the sacrifice that we are asked to make applies to them. And that group is the very people who ask us to sacrifice– the politicians.

  Taxpayer funded travel by politicians has risen tenfold since 1995, and in recent years the rate of growth in taxpayer funded travel has skyrocketed.

The spending on overseas travel is up almost tenfold since 1995, and has nearly tripled since 2001, according to the Journal analysis of 60,000 travel records

  Not to be outdone by the Bush administration the Democrats have taken it to a new level.

Hundreds of lawmakers traveled overseas in 2008 at a cost of about $13 million. That’s a 50% jump since Democrats took control of Congress two years ago.

  In the last two years congress has doubled their travel expenses, this just happens to coincide with the Democrat takeover of the House and Senate.

  So while Obama’s economic policies and the stimulus bill have worsened the economy and as the unemployment rate is at a 25 year high and getting closer to 10% every day these politicians do not seem to have a problem flying all across the world on their little junkets while we foot the bill. (Not to mention the fact that the people who are in the process of passing global warming legislation are flying around in personal jets which supposedly hurts the environment while they ask us to drive less and pay more.) They are traveling at record levels when they should be cutting back.

  Some of this travel is necessary while much of it seems suspect to say the least:

The Journal analysis shows that the government has picked up the tab for travel to destinations such as Jamaica, the Virgin Islands and Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.

  But it gets even better:

Sen. Daniel Inouye (D., Hawaii) led a group of a half-dozen senators and their spouses on a four-day trip to France for the biennial Paris Air Show. An itinerary for the event shows that lawmakers flew on the Air Force’s version of the Boeing 737, which costs $5,700 an hour to operate. They stayed at the Intercontinental Paris Le Grand Hotel, which advertises rooms from $460 a night.

  That was a diplomatic trip? Yeah Right!

  But the part that I might find the most appalling is the way that many politicians use trips to war zones, which I think is very necessary, to cover up for trips to other, more exotic places.

lawmakers combine trips to war zones with visits to more tranquil spots. In February, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi led a delegation of Democratic lawmakers to visit U.S. troops in Afghanistan for a day. Before landing in Kabul, the eight lawmakers and their entourage of spouses and aides spent eight days in Italy, spending $57,697 on hotels and meals.

  Nancy Pelosi used the troops and the war as cover for the real destination of her trip — Italy. I find this disgusting.

  So just remember the next time that you hear President Obama give a speech in which he claims “we can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times,” that the politicians in Washington do not hold themselves to the same standard that Barack Obama told the world he would hold us to.

  Remember that while we are being asked to sacrifice, the people asking us to sacrifice are using our money to take extravagant trips around the world.

  Remember and then tell yourself  “no more.” And then in November of 2010 show the politicians you meant it when you said “no more.”