The Ruling Class Flies First Class

Instapundit links John Stossel:

Will you and your family put off a vacation this year because you can’t afford it? Too bad, because you have paid for some terrific trips — for government bureaucrats. The Washington Times reports that last year $13 billion in tax dollars was spent to pamper ‘public servants’ on trips that double as vacation junkets.

Nancy Pelosi, jet-aircraft connoisseur. Don't complain. It cost us under $2.2 million to jet her around. And she IS our first female Speaker of the House. Shouldn't that warrant her choice of military aircraft? "Like I say, I don’t want to hear one word about my carbon footprint."

Tigerhawk:

I am an executive in a public company, so according to many Democrats my compensation ought to be regulated because I cannot be trusted to deal fairly with my supposedly powerless stockholders. But here's the thing: Neither I nor any other executive in my company flies first class, even to Asia. Coach all the way, even for the CEO, because we know that first class is essentially impossible to justify as anything other than a hidden perk.

Apparently, however, the federal government believes that first class is justified for its bureaucrats. . . .

So, who is more accountable to their constituents: Me to my stockholders, or the jet-setting regulators to the voters?

Greed for power and perks masquerades as virtue among the self-important people who make the laws and regulations by which we must live.

Thomas Sowell:

I have never understood why it is “greed” to want to keep the money you have earned but not greed to want to take somebody else’s money.