Why Is the Mainstream Media Suddenly Interested in Executive Branch Travel Costs?

Why Is the Mainstream Media Suddenly Interested in Executive Branch Travel Costs?

Since President Trump’s election, we’ve seen remarkable ideological turnarounds from the left.  Suddenly, communist Russia is the enemy rather than a model for the perfect society ala Bernie’s decades-long admiration, the First Amendment is now of some import in protecting free speech (theirs and no one else’s), and the unrestrained spending of the federal government is now a problem.

These are the same people who have said nothing about Obama nearly doubling our national debt, who cue up to sing the praises of Bernie’s Russia-inspired budget-busting lunacy regarding free college and Medicare for all, and who shrug and note that a few million taxpayer dollars used to train for a zombie apocalypse is merely a drop in the bucket of the federal budget.

These same people are now deeply, truly (they claim) scandalized that various Trump administration officials are using taxpayer-funded private and military transportation when they could more cheaply travel as we, the great unwashed who are funding their lush lifestyle, do.

Frankly, the waste and disregard of our hard-earned tax dollars is a disgrace . . . no matter who is in the White House.  That latter distinction, however, is lost on the leftist media who, having already claimed Tom Price’s scalp (rightly so), are now setting their sights on Kellyanne Conway‘s travel, along with other Trump admin officials.

The leftist media has set up a rubric of which Saul Alinsky would be proud: we’ll do what we like, but you, you we’ll hold to your own standards. We are seeing this in spades right now as the leftist media runs wild with the travel costs of Trump administration officials.

They are pointing out that Price and others are misusing their position to waste taxpayer dollars on military or private travel that cannot be justified.  While they are quite right to point this out, they are also revealing their extreme political bias by daring the right to defend government’s fiscal irresponsibility.

Where was all this outrage when then-president Obama and wife Michelle took separate planes, replete with Secret Service details, to the same destination on the same day?

This happened a lot, yet we heard next to nothing from the leftist media.

While not an exhaustive list, same day separate flights for the Obamas include:

Hey, let’s hit LA.  On separate planes, on the same day . . . at enormous taxpayer expense.

How about heading to California?  On separate planes on the same day . . . at enormous taxpayer expense.

And then there’s Hawaii, what president doesn’t need two separate planes (one for himself and one for his wife and the family dog) replete with top Secret Service protection to go to Hawaii for the holidays?

What about Michelle Obama’s outlandishly expensive trip to Africa, with hairdresser and makeup artist in tow?

But it wasn’t just the Obamas’ travel (and lavish entertainment) at our expense that was ignored by the now suddenly and rabidly fiscal hawk media.  They also ignored the same sort of travel by Obama admin officials that Price briefly enjoyed.

Obama officials frequently took pricey non-commercial flights . . . to wherever, for whatever.

Fox News reports:

Top figures during President Barack Obama’s tenure who used non-commercial planes for travel included then-attorney generals Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch, then-FBI director Robert Mueller, and then-CIA director and defense secretary Leon Panetta.

Because of their jobs, these officials were required to take government planes for security and communications purposes. Still, critics questioned whether they could have found more cost-effective options and whether all the trips were necessary.

The issue of Cabinet officials using non-commercial planes resurfaced after the outcry over Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price’s repeated use of private planes and military flights for official business. Price resigned from the administration over the scandal Friday.

There are two salient points here: public servants are dismissive in their attitude toward, almost blasé about, the hard-working people they are meant to represent and serve.  They seem imbued, left and right, with the perception that taxpayers represent a bottomless pit of “revenue” that can be thrown around like candy. Government “revenue,” we should keep in mind, is taxes collected from eligible taxpayers.

While I can’t defend Price’s or other Trump administration officials’ squandering our money on travel, I do think it’s time to pushback against a mainstream media that works to undermine the Trump presidency by finding intolerable behaviors they found perfectly acceptable, even worth “debunking the myth,” from the Obama administration.

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