Vacations Galore and You Pay for Them
by Big Dog on Apr 17, 2007 at 13:45 Political
There have been howls from the left about George Bush making recess appointments. The Democrats believe that the President is circumventing the system and in that assertion they would be correct. I can’t say that I would be happy if I were a Democrat but I can not blame the President either. He nominates a guy who gets shot down because he donated money to a group that opposed John Kerry’s bid for the White House. The nomination was opposed because of this guy’s political activities. I guess we could say that Hillary can not be President because she gave money to Democrats. Ridiculous, is it not? The underlying issue is that Congress takes too many breaks. Every time you turn around, Congress is on a break and I am not talking about a three day holiday weekend like those of us who pay their salaries get, I am talking two to four weeks at a time. They will tell you that they need time home with their constituents but I will debunk that later. First things first. If Congress does not want the President to make recess appointments then they should not go on recess. They should work 48 weeks a year like most other people (I figure an average of 4 weeks vacation, remember AVERAGE) do and they would not have to worry about it. I hear they might take shorter breaks to prevent this from happening again. If I were Bush I would appoint as many people as possible during a recess just to piss them off.
Now, on the the idea that they need to be home. Where did Pelosi spend her time off? Syria, Israel and all kinds of other places that do not sound like California. She was out trying to do an Executive Branch function while throwing in a vacation. I would like to know if any of her family tagged along and how much of the bill the taxpayer footed. As a matter of fact, over the Easter recess the Air Force flew 13 Congressional delegations around the world on one contrived mission or another. There were trips to Mexico, Honduras, the US Virgin Islands, and Belgium and on one of these trips the taxpayer paid $1,100 a night for hotel rooms. That kind of money for a hotel room makes it a vacation, not a business trip. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, who took his wife, claimed that they paid the government rate but there is no government rate where they went. He lied.
Our soldiers travel on real business and they do not get to take their wives and they certainly do not get to stay in rooms that cost more per night than they make in a month. Government employees who do not have Congressman or Senator in front of their names have to watch every penny they spend when traveling. They have to book the cheapest airfare, the cheapest and smallest rental car, a hotel room that is not one cent more than the government rate and have to pay for any meal cost that exceeds the allowed amount. Members of Congress though, claim to be going on some fact finding mission in order to take expensive vacations with their spouses and have every bit of it paid for by the American taxpayer and they act as if we should be happy that they are screwing us this way.
This country was established with a form of government that is designed to be representative. It was designed so that people would not serve forever and thus be subject to the corruption of power. It was designed to prevent us from having a king as the supreme ruler over the land. Unfortunately, we now have 535 Kings and Queens who live the life of royalty off the backs of the their subjects.
I want full disclosure of each participant’s itinerary so that I can see who paid for their spouses and how much money was spent and on what. This is something that the Democrats, who vowed to be transparent and to end this kind of abuse, should be willing to provide.
Source:
Examiner
Tags: Political