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Post by avordvet on Feb 28, 2017 14:41:20 GMT -5
Taxpayers fund a first-class congressional foreign travel boomPaul Singer, USA TODAY Published 1:32 p.m. ET Feb. 27, 2017 Most taxpayers will never pay $10,000 in flights for an overseas trip, but in the year prior to the 2016 election, taxpayers paid for 557 such trips that each cost more than $10,000 for a member of Congress or a staffer. Those five-digit global itineraries made up 40% of all individual congressional trips for which travel costs were publicly reported. By comparison, less than 0.2% of tickets purchased by the general public through U.S. travel agencies in 2015 and 2016 were more than $10,000, according to the Airlines Reporting Corp. The pricey flights were part of a surge in foreign travel. Congress spent at least $14.7 million on taxpayer-funded trips in fiscal year 2016, a 27% increase over the year before, according to Congress’ own accounting. www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/02/27/taxpayers-fund-first-class-congressional-foreign-travel-boom-overseas/98351442/
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