Trump Cabinet's Spending Habits
Floor Speech
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Mr. GALLEGO. Mr. Speaker, this weekend, millions of Americans will stop procrastinating and sit down and do their taxes.
Nobody likes paying taxes, but what people really hate is when their tax dollars are wasted or, worse, when the money they have worked so hard to earn, money that could have gone to paying for their mortgage or the rent, or money that could have gone to pay our troops or rebuild our roads instead ends up in the pockets of corrupt politicians.
When that happens, when a public official takes your hard-earned money and uses it to pay, for example, for a first-class flight or a fancy hotel, the American taxpayer has a right to know. That is why, today, we have written a letter to every worker in this country who pays taxes. You can find it posted on our websites or on medium.com.
Our letter simply lists, for the benefit of everyone who will be sending in a return before April 17, some of the ways that the Trump administration has been spending your money. The American taxpayer has a right to know where those dollars are going.
With the help of the gentleman from California (Mr. Ted Lieu), my good friend, I would like to share with you a quick accounting of the Trump Cabinet's spending habits. We think a pattern will quickly emerge.
While Lincoln had his ``Team of Rivals'' and Kennedy assembled the ``Best and the Brightest,'' Donald Trump is running a ``Cabinet of Corruption.'' So let's get started.
I yield to the gentleman.
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Mr. GALLEGO. Mr. Speaker, another example, Treasury Secretary Mnuchin, nearly $1 million on seven military flights, instead of flying commercial like his predecessors, including a day trip to Ottawa with his fiancee, a $26,900 military flight to Kentucky in August-- coincidentally, while at the same time there is a solar eclipse, a trip that is still under investigation by the investigator general.
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Mr. GALLEGO. Mr. Speaker, let's talk about HUD Secretary Ben Carson: for a mahogany dining set for his office, $31,000.
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Mr. GALLEGO. That is, actually, they were personal planes that he took that cost a total of $500,000, Congressman Lieu.
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Mr. GALLEGO. Mr. Speaker, we have our favorite cause, or celebrity nowadays, the EPA Administrator, Scott Pruitt, who, so far, has spent $800,000 for around-the-clock security, nearly twice the cost of security for Pruitt's two immediate predecessors; $105,000 in first- class commercial airline tickets during his first year in office, including a $40,000 trip to Morocco to promote the use of natural gas, which doesn't even fall under the EPA mission. He spent $1,600 on a first-class plane ticket from Washington to New York in order to make two brief television appearances defending the decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement.
You could take a train that will take you just as long and will end up being, privately, one-tenth of that price if you wanted to go with everyday Americans instead of trying to live it up.
He also did an $84,000 trip to Italy to meet with G7 Environment Ministers and took a private Vatican tour; more than $58,000 on chartered flights, including a $36,068 flight from Cincinnati, where Pruitt appeared alongside Trump at an event to New York, where he caught a flight for his Italy trip; a $5,719 intra-State flight from Denver to Durango, Colorado--I have done this trip before. It does not cost you $5,719--despite Governor Hickenlooper's offer of a State plane ride, which would have been free; $120,000 for a right-leaning PR firm, known for its campaign-style opposition research that may have been used to target career EPA employees; and another $43,000 on a soundproof phone booth for Pruitt's office and $6,000 on biometric fingerprinting locks for that booth.
Pruitt also bypassed the White House in order to grant raises to two of his aides worth tens of thousands of dollars. Pruitt's former deputy chief of staff reports that Pruitt far outspent the $5,000 decorating allowance for his office, frequently stayed in luxury hotels that exceeded even the 300 percent per diem government rate cap for exceptional circumstances, and directed staff to find official reasons for Pruitt to fly home to Oklahoma or to various cities he wished to visit at taxpayer expense.
I would like to point out that we haven't even fully done 2 years in the Trump administration and we are talking about so many of his own Cabinet members who are creating waste, fraud, and abuse. Had any of this occurred during the time when President Obama occupied the White House, we would have a Congress--specifically, the Republican-led Congress--talking about this every day. They would have oversight hearings. They would actually be trying to keep the Presidency in check. Instead, with very few exceptions, what we have is a Republican Congress that is part of the problem and not part of the solution.
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Mr. GALLEGO. Mr. Speaker, when the President ran for office, he ran on a saying: drain the swamp.
Does this look like you are draining the swamp?
Does the list of people and the list of corruption we have seen, does that look like you are draining the swamp?
No, it seems like you are just adding it. All you are doing is adding more and more to the culture of corruption and creating that swamp.
If the President was serious about it, if my colleagues were also serious about draining the swamp, then they need to keep their own party and their own Cabinet members in check because, right now, that is not happening.
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Mr. GALLEGO. Mr. Speaker, in closing, if you wonder why these Cabinet members feel that they can get away with this, if you wonder why some of these lifelong career politicians and executives think that this is a good idea, it is because they look at the top. They look at the top and they say: Well, my leader, President Trump, is allowed to do this, why can't I also take part?
It is the leadership at the top that is creating this culture. It is the leadership at the top that is not draining the swamp, but only making it swampier.
That is why you see Secretary Mnuchin, that is why you see Pruitt, that is why you see all of these people basically acting like the President: wasteful with our tax dollars, abusing our tax dollars, and not even trying to explain why, or feeling bad about why they did it.
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Mr. GALLEGO. Mr. Speaker, while you are filling out your taxes--I already did mine. I did not procrastinate this time, thank God. I am sure Congressman Lieu is a lot more organized and probably got it done 3 months ago--but when you are doing your taxes, and when you pay your taxes, just remember, some of that money has gone into the pockets of some politicians who did not need it. It could have gone somewhere else. It could have gone to your favorite issue. It could have gone to our troops. It could have gone to some of our more important causes. Instead, it was because one Cabinet member decided that he needed to take a first-class trip instead of sitting in coach like the rest of us.
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