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A special report prepared by the General Accounting Office at the
request of Republican Sens. Larry Craig, Idaho, Jeff Sessions, Ala., and
Craig Thomas, Wyo., indicates that Bill Clinton will go down in history
not only as the most traveled U.S. president, but also as the president
who spent the most tax dollars per trip.
Critics say that, while it is necessary for the leader of the world’s
last superpower to travel overseas, it is not necessary for him to drag
along the massive entourages of bureaucrats, aides and businessmen that
Clinton did — the net result being a wasteful depletion of resources
from an already diminished U.S. defense budget.
Clinton’s jaunts were so frequent and so large that the GAO could
audit only three 1998 trips for its review: trips to Africa, Chile and
China. These three alone cost a staggering $72 million.
More for Clinton, less for military
After seeing the report, Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., chairman of the
Armed Services Committee’s Subcommittee on Readiness, announced he would
hold hearings to examine how Clinton’s frequent junkets and swollen
travel rosters have drawn down funds appropriated for military
readiness.
Clinton’s travel costs as calculated by the GAO reflect only a part
of the true cost, because GAO accountants could not decipher the
expenses incurred by some federal agencies in planning the trips, and
did not determine the salary expenses of the bureaucrats and military
personnel assigned to work them. Also, Secret Service costs were
classified. When a president decides to travel overseas it requires a
minimum of three advance trips by numerous government agencies —
ranging from the Department of Defense to the White House.
Communications agency to the Secret Service
According to Craig, $60.5 million of the overall $72 million price
tag for the trips came at the expense of military readiness. “The money
came out of the U.S. defense budget, specifically the operations and
maintenance account, which pays for the day-to-day operations of our
military forces, equipment maintenance and support, purchase of spare
parts and training, and from the Transportation Working Capital Fund.”
Craig said Clinton’s bloated travel rosters were a cause for concern:
“A whopping 1,300 people tagged along to Africa, 592 to Chile and 510 to
China.”
These numbers reflect only the government officials whose air travel
was paid for by the government. Private citizens who tagged along had to
reimburse the government for air travel, but not for the logistical
support. By contrast, the George Bush Presidential Library at Texas A&M
University told Human Events that a White House memo from 1989 indicated
that when Bush traveled to China shortly after being inaugurated, he
took only 374 people with him.
At a Sept. 21 White House briefing, when reporters questioned White
House spokesman Joe Lockhart about Clinton’s travel, he countered that
Clinton traveled less in his first term than Bush had during his. As an
isolated fact, that’s true. But Clinton already has spent over 100 days
in his second term on foreign trips, and doesn’t plan to slow down in
his last year.
Craig said the White House did not cooperate with the GAO’s review.
“They found considerable resistance from the White House,” he said, “and
had to go directly to Defense to get these figures, because the White
House would not cooperate the way most agencies do when they are asked
to by the GAO.”
So far, Clinton has spent 186 days out of the country during his
presidency compared to 86 for Bush and 84 for Reagan. Bush averaged
21.5 foreign travel days per year. Clinton is averaging 27.6.
Meanwhile, Clinton has increased troop deployments while cutting the
defense budget. That’s why the Pentagon is disturbed that it has to
bear most of the expenses for Clinton’s Marco Polo presidency.
