It was just constant toil, so much so that, a few days into the week-long tour, Reid joked to a Chinese official that after “having spent two days in Hong Kong and Macau eating as we did, we are all heavyweights.”
Now we’ve learned a bit about how much this grand junketry cost taxpayers.
According to the Congressional Record, per diem and “miscellaneous” expenses came to $66,000. That doesn’t include the “transportation” costs of the military jet flying over and back — the Pentagon bills around $10,000 an hour for the larger planes.
So figure a round trip to China would be 30 hours in the air. The bill for the plane — paid out of a special slush fund for these things — would be about $300,000. And that doesn’t include various lengthy flights within China — which is, after all, a big place.
Then there are the substantial indirect costs of countless embassy staffers on the ground in preparing for and then guiding the large delegation.
Readers may also recall a fine 10-day jaunt to Europe in August by House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) and ranking Democrat Norm Dicks (Wash.) and other members (and spouses and staff) to meet with top officials and talk about military operations and expenditures. This group was going to Britain, Germany, Austria and possibly Italy.
No word yet on what that trip will cost taxpayers. But we did come across another Appropriations Committee codel, in which “Chairman Emeritus” Rep. C.W. Bill Young (R-Fla.) led a group on an excellent week-long journey to France and Italy in early June.
The group included Republican Reps. Jack Kingston, Kay Granger, Tom Cole, John Carter and Ander Crenshaw and Democrats Norm Dicks, again in Italy?), Marcy Kaptur and Sanford Bishop racked up more than $65,000 in per diem and “other” costs — not including that all-important business-class-seating, military jet.
They had to go to France for the 67th anniversary of D-Day, then to an Air Force base in Italy to see how the Libya operation — based there — was going, and to visit a military hospital in Germany.
But the plane “was diverted due to inclement weather and low fuel,” we were told, so they couldn’t make it to the anniversary ceremony and had to scrub the hospital trip.
Oh, dear. So the week-long trip meant just going to France and then the base and then visiting the U.S. Embassy in Rome. We trust they had enough time and energy to grab a fine dinner (the lobster medallions and truffles are said to be superb) — at nearby La Terrazza.
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