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Friday, September 22, 2017

Those Pesky Private Planes

There's a big buzz about the travel of two cabinet members, Betsy DeVos who is Secretary of Education and Dr. Tom Price who is Secretary of HHS.  Both have made use of private planes more than once per month to accomplish their travels.

Let's start with DeVos.  The media and the left hate her with a particular venom.  DeVos' use of private planes is just the latest brouhaha to erupt.  There's a problem with the story, however.  DeVos is using her own private jet for travel, and she isn't charging the government for that use.  That's right; unlike most other cabinet officials, DeVos is saving the taxpayers money by providing her own travel means.  In short, the complaints are actually rather silly.

It's a different story with Price.  His department has chartered private planes for him something like ten times.  The travel people at HHS say that in order to meet his schedule, Price could not fly on commercial airlines on all occasions.  When there was time, he flew commercial, but when there was not, he went by private plane.  That seems reasonable to me.  Once again, it is not a major story.

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