I tend not to read the New York Post however they had an article online today which cited that the plane requested by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi costs tax payers $22,000 an hour to operate.
The U.S. Air Force say it has offered Pelosi a different plane (C-21 Executive Jet) that operates at only $900 an hour. Pelosi's predecessor Dennis Hastert used the same plane following 9/11 when additional security for the person second in line to president was needed.
Pelosi's issue with the C-21 Executive Jet is that it must refuel enroute to San Francisco, her home town. I would have to agree with Pelosi (for once), politicians need to get back to their districts as quickly and efficiently as possible. Stopping to refuel make her trip longer, members of Congress need to spend time in their districts and on the hill. They need to be able to make this almost weekly trips as easy as possible. If she took a commercial flight she would be able to fly from Washington to San Francisco in 7 hours stopping to refuel would force the trip to at least 10 hours, almost an entire business day. The time saved by the larger plane outweighs the cost, more business will be able to be conducted.
What do you think?
The U.S. Air Force say it has offered Pelosi a different plane (C-21 Executive Jet) that operates at only $900 an hour. Pelosi's predecessor Dennis Hastert used the same plane following 9/11 when additional security for the person second in line to president was needed.
Pelosi's issue with the C-21 Executive Jet is that it must refuel enroute to San Francisco, her home town. I would have to agree with Pelosi (for once), politicians need to get back to their districts as quickly and efficiently as possible. Stopping to refuel make her trip longer, members of Congress need to spend time in their districts and on the hill. They need to be able to make this almost weekly trips as easy as possible. If she took a commercial flight she would be able to fly from Washington to San Francisco in 7 hours stopping to refuel would force the trip to at least 10 hours, almost an entire business day. The time saved by the larger plane outweighs the cost, more business will be able to be conducted.
What do you think?
2 comments:
I do not agree that the time saved outweighs the cost. Is it really fair to American taxpayers to charge them 24.4 times as much for an extra 6 hours in an airplane roundtrip from DC to California. We live in an information age and you can get a lot done over the telephone and internet now. I do not believe a Congresswoman's time is really that much more important. $22,000 an hour is a lot of money. If she only went home (assuming that is the only place she is traveling to) a total of twelve times in a year and flew back it would cost over three million dollars ($3,696,000 to be exact). That's about 37 times the budget more than many local and state non-profits. And our soldiers in Iraq could definitely use repairs on their equipment. The worst part is I doubt she is the only person in government that misuses taxpayers funds.
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