CovOps
Location : Ether-Sphere Job/hobbies : Irrationality Exterminator Humor : Über Serious
| Subject: Statist maggots and their rackets: US Dept. of Health execs doing good and living large, flying first class around the world Sun Jan 11, 2015 8:53 pm | |
| Half the records listed the price of a coach ticket for comparison. For that portion alone, the upgrade boosted the cost by almost $14 million, from $4.9 million to $18.5 million.
Federal employees are allowed to fly business or first class if the flight is longer than 14 hours, but only 1,400 of the 7,000 flights met that description. For the vast majority of the flights — 5,100 — the government executives upgraded because they claimed they had a medical disability that necessitated it. Others cited "exceptional security circumstances," that no coach tickets were available, that a non-federal source was footing the bill, that first or business class was "required because of agency mission." Then-Secretary Kathleen Sebelius took 14 first- or business-class trips totaling $56,000, including flights to and within India and from Paris to Vietnam. The Food and Drug Administration took 2,000 upgraded trips costing $14 million and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention took 3,000 trips costing $11 million. The National Institutes of Health took 1,300 such trips costing $3.5 million. One flight for the Food and Drug Administration from Washington, D.C. to Los Angeles , then to Australia and Germany, is listed as costing $26,469.23, with the upgrade because of a medical disability. A flight to Germany cost $23,000 for the same reason. Another FDA staffer spent an extra $10,000 of taxpayer money to fly first class from San Francisco to D.C.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/hhs-execs-doing-good-and-living-large-flying-first-class-around-the-world/article/2558399 |
|