Department of Health and Human Services Flies First Class

If you have read Political Realities for any length of time, you will know how much I despise the way the federal government spends our money. A more apt description would be how they waste our money, but who am I to quibble? I suppose that’s why I was always a fan of Dr. Tom Coburn. He held nothing back in showing just how good the federal government was at spending money on things unnecessary, or even remotely so. To list even a handful of the available examples would require much more time and space than any of us have, but there is one example that deserves to be highlighted.

You remember the Department of Health and Human Services? That’s the agency that is tasked with shoving ObamaCare down our throats. It seems the people who work there are quite proud of themselves and feel they are important enough to fly first class. Literally!

The Washington Examiner – Helping America’s poor, aged and sick is the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ reason for being, but hundreds of its top officials are traveling in style and luxury at taxpayer expense.

Records obtained by the Washington Examiner under the Freedom of Information Act show that HHS executives spent $31 million taking 7,000 first class and business class flights between 2009 and 2013, including 253 trips for which a one-way ticket cost more than $15,000.

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.

Forgive me if this is a completely uncalled for connection, but it appears to me the Department of Health and Human Services is drawing on the example being set by their boss, one President Obama. Do they all think the American taxpayer exists only to work to fund their junkets all over the world? It’s one thing for someone to fly first class when they or the company they are working for are paying the bill, but when the federal government is already so deep in the hole that they can’t see up for looking down, why do these people insist on digging the hole ever deeper? And don’t even try to explain to me how the amount of money they are spending is but a drop in the bucket to the debt we are in. That’s not even close to being the point.

All this week, we have watched as the new Congress was sworn into office. We then watched as the Republicans leaders proceeded to do as they pleased, in spite of it being clear that the voters who put them into office wanted new leadership in Congress. As it is with the Department of Health and Human Services, as well as other departments of the overgrown monstrosity we call the federal government, they all think they know best. Never mind the wishes of the people. Never mind that the people want the out of control spending to stop and the redefining of normal to cease and desist.

How much longer are we supposed to sit by and just accept this stupidity as the norm?