posted August 06, 2009 06:59 PM
Last month, Congressional appropriators ordered three $65 million corporate jets (at a total cost of nearly $200 million), just a year after calling out Detroit executives for taking their own planes to testify on the health of the auto industry.But wait -- it gets better.
"The Air Force had asked for one Gulfstream 550 jet (price tag: about $65 million) as part of an ongoing upgrade of its passenger air service," But the House Appropriations Committee, at its own initiative, added to the 2010 Defense appropriations bill another $132 million for two more airplanes and specified that they be assigned to the D.C.-area units that carry Members of Congress, military brass and top government officials."
Not surprisingly, the dispensation for three new Gulfstream aircraft doesn't stipulate which member of Congress made the request. The House Appropriations Committee doesn't even consider the request an earmark "because the... Committee viewed the additional aircraft as an expansion of an existing Defense Department program."
The Defense Department's new job? Defending members of Congress from flying coach.
I haven't researched this fully. Just heard about it.
~ Surely if the Air Force asked for one... they only had one hand in a Boeing pocket!? Boeing planes made in Georgia, maybe it is stimulus for the Georgia economy.