Trump Cabinet Secretary Chartered $25,000 Plane for Trip That Could Have Cost $46

Secretary Tom Price Just Last Week Spent $60,000 on Private Planes at Taxpayer Expense

Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price last week spent $25,000 of the taxpayers’ money on a private chartered 30-seat plane for a trip from DC to Philadelphia that would have taken two-and-a-half hours to drive in a government SUV at a cost of just $46 in gas and tolls. If the Secretary didn’t want to drive, he could have spent $72 on Amtrak, or even $447 to $725 to fly commercially.

Politico has been investigating Secretary Price’s travel, noting the $25,000 flight was just one of at least five, and possibly many more, that violate guidelines for federal officials that state “taxpayers should pay no more than necessary for your transportation.” Each of those five private flights cost taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars more than flying coach would have cost taxpayers. The five trips cost taxpayers an estimated $60,000.

Here’s the photo op Secretary Price posted from the trip that cost Americans $25,000 in just air travel:

Secretary Price is a former Republican U.S. Congressman from Georgia. His voting record places him in the “hard core conservative” tank, as far to the right on economic issues as possible. In short, he claims to be a fiscal conservative, and has promised to slash spending at the federal agencies he controls.

And like many Trump officials, Secretary Price has been anything but transparent about his work or his travel.

“Current and former staffers, speaking on the condition of anonymity, say Price has been taking private jets to travel domestically for months,” Politico reports, adding that Secretary Price and his spokesperson refused to comment.

“I can understand why the secretary might have to use a charter flight to get to a hurricane-devastated region, but Philadelphia is not one of those regions this year,” Walter Shaub, the former director of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, told Politico. “I find it hard to believe he couldn’t find a suitable commercial flight to Philadelphia.”

“This wasteful conduct reflects disdain for the ethical principle of treating public service as a public trust,” said Shaub. “Public office isn’t supposed to come with frivolous perks at taxpayer expense.”

Indeed, Politico also interviewed several Obama-era officials to determine if Price’s travel arrangement were standard.

They are anything but.

Former staffers for Obama-era Health and Human Services Secretaries Kathleen Sebelius and Sylvia Burwell told Politico that almost without exception not only did the two cabinet secretaries always fly commercially, they always flew coach.

WATCH: HHS Secretary Tom Price: $880 Billion Cut to Medicaid ‘Makes A Lot of Sense’

“The basic rules that our scheduling team worked under were, you flew commercial and you flew economy,” former Secretary Sebelius told Politico. “That’s just what they did.”

Staff for Burwell and Sebelius said booking even a single charter flight was, in the words of one, a “non-starter” within the department. For example, for last year’s Obamacare enrollment kick-off, HHS staff had planned a multi-city tour for Burwell to urge Americans to sign up for coverage. The effort, which would have required charter aircraft, was ultimately scrapped because of its estimated $60,000 cost.

“We were worried about the optics and the cost to taxpayers,” said one former staffer involved in the planning.

In any other administration this would be considered a scandal and there would be calls for Price to resign.

Here’s how one conservative pundit weighed in:

Politico’s Dan Diamond tweets out a photo of the plane that cost Price decided was worth $25,000 of taxpayers’ money for a few hours roundtrip:

Some more responses via Twitter:

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Image via Tom Price/Twitter

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