One lucky USDA agent was given an all expensive paid trip to Australia to study Mississippi Crayfish. As CBS put it: "They could've been studied closer to home...but the waves aren't as good in the bayou."Today, the Nebraska Democratic Party took Johanns to task over this report. The whole press release can be found here but Steve Achelpohl, Chairman of the NDP, had this to say:
"Taxpayers just can’t trust Mike Johanns with their money, and he clearly can’t be trusted to provide important oversight of government agencies in the Senate. We need to elect leaders who value taxpayer dollars and don’t treat them as a vacation fund. Closing important offices in our state while employees travel around the world shows a lack of judgment and an inability to set the right priorities for Nebraska.”While the story has largely gone unreported this past week, it appears someone somewhere picked up on it because the Johanns campaign felt the need to respond which this email to supporters (courtesy of our good friend, Sarah Pompei:
"It is unfortunate Democrats would attempt to focus the debate of this campaign on old-style partisan politics. Today, they have even attempted to blame Secretary Johanns for actions that occurred 5 years before he arrived at the USDA. Their mud-slinging is unacceptable, and Nebraskans will see through their negative attacks.Normally, this would be the part of the post where I would say something clever, but gosh darn it if the NDP didn't beat me to it. Take it away Eric:
When Mike Johanns arrived at the USDA on January 21, 2005, he set a clear guideline that all travel must be for legitimate government purposes. He demanded all employees follow the highest standards, and required USDA staff work with congressional oversight to see these standards were met legally and ethically."
At the risk of sounding redundant, in 2006 alone – when Mike Johanns was Ag Secretary and had been for almost a year – over $250,000 were spent on trips to Hawaii and over $280,000 were spent on trips to Orlando. Over 6,700 trips were taken that year. I guess the message is that Johanns lacked the leadership and judgment to ensure that his new “guidelines” were followed.Could not agree more.
Does this mean that Mike Johanns is incapable of changing the culture in Washington? It sure seems like it.
Here’s to hoping we can elect a Senator capable of that change: Scott Kleeb.
2 comments:
This is shite. One conference at a hotel in any major city having around 150 attendees will cost somehwere in the neighborhood of $250K to $500K...all things included (rooms, airfare, taxi,,, etc) The cunard that travel is vacation is absurd. Hopefully the Harvard grads can come up with something more.
First of all your numbers are way off. Perhaps if they were hosting those conferences then the price could be that high, but they were sending (for most of these conferences) one or two people so there is no reason to be spending that much.
Most likely, they would be spending all of that because they are staying in lavish hotels instead of a Motel 8 which is where they should be staying. Not wasting my hard earned taxpayer dollars on this bull.
I agree with you, travel does not equal vacation. I have to travel all the time for my job and it's a pain in the rear. Yet when I go to a conference I don't get send to exotic resorts in Australia to study fish that are native to Mississippi.
Bottom line, most of the conferences are valid, but far too many of them are not and that calls into question the leadership qualities of Mike Johanns.
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