July 05, 2005

Tom DeLay Gets Free Trip

Oh I'm sorry, I made a mistake in the title of this piece. Please replace Tom DeLay with Nancy Pelosi.

Pelosi has finally submitted reports for three trips she took that were worth over $8,000 and took place as long as seven (!) years ago.

The unreported trip was a week-long 1999 visit to Taiwan, paid for by the Chinese National Association of Industry and Commerce, for "meetings with government, military and business officials," according to a filing Pelosi signed June 30. The flights cost $3,400 each for Pelosi and her husband. The hotel cost was $940. The sponsor, which has picked up trips for leaders of both parties, paid $300 for meals.

I guess Pelosi and hubby didn't fly economy class.

Of course, Tom DeLay came under fire when it was found he took some unreported trips. In fact, it was front page news just a few months ago. To find the article linked above on today's Washington Post website, one must scroll down to the fine print under the Politics heading.

Also according to the article about Pelosi,[t]he data firm PoliticalMoneyLine calculates that members of Congress have received more than $18 million in travel from private organizations in the past five years, with Democrats taking 3,458 trips and Republicans taking 2,666.