[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 60 (Friday, April 13, 2018)]
[House]
[Pages H3306-H3307]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    TRUMP CABINET'S SPENDING HABITS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2017, the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Gallego) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  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.
  Mr. TED LIEU of California. Mr. Speaker, Mr. Gallego and I both 
served in the Active Duty U.S. military because we believe America is 
an exceptional country, the best in the world. But what really bugs us 
is the fraud, waste, and abuse of taxpayers' funds and taxpayers' 
money, and the culture of corruption in this administration starts at 
the top with the President. So I am just going to go through some 
numbers--these are facts--of how much Donald Trump has wasted of 
taxpayers' money.
  He has spent over $58 million on 95 trips to golf clubs, including 
Mar-a-Lago, Bedminster, and other Trump-owned properties. Every time he 
takes one of these trips, according to The Washington Post and 
Politico, it costs about $3 million, with all the staff and everyone 
that has to go and travel with him. In addition, $137,000 was used for 
golf carts for the Secret Service between January and October 2017 
alone.
  At least $190,000 of taxpayers' money was used for Trump brothers' 
business trips in the first 3 months of 2017; $17,000 for custom rugs 
in the Oval Office; over $12,000 on a custom conference table for the 
West Wing of the White House from, by the way, the same company used by 
President Nixon.
  So this corruption starts at the top, and now you are going to see, 
as you go along through the Cabinet, the fraud, waste, and abuse of 
taxpayers' money.
  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.
  Mr. TED LIEU of California. Mr. Speaker, and then we have Interior 
Secretary Ryan Zinke, who spent $139,000 of taxpayers' money to 
renovate some office doors; $39,000 for a helicopter tour of national 
monuments in Nevada; $12,000 on a private jet from Las Vegas, Nevada, 
where he spoke to a hockey team owned by a major donor, to his home in 
Montana; as well as a taxpayer-funded security detail that also 
accompanied him and his wife on their personal vacation to Greece and 
Turkey at considerable taxpayer expense.
  Mr. GALLEGO. Mr. Speaker, let's talk about HUD Secretary Ben Carson: 
for a mahogany dining set for his office, $31,000.
  Mr. TED LIEU of California. Mr. Speaker, and now we have Veterans' 
Affairs Secretary David Shulkin, who spent over $122,000 of taxpayer 
funds with his wife to go to Europe for their primary purpose of 
sightseeing. David Shulkin has been fired.
  I shall also note that Secretary Tom Price, who was also in the Trump 
Cabinet, spent huge amounts of taxpayers' dollars on first-class 
flights. He was also fired.
  Mr. GALLEGO. That is, actually, they were personal planes that he 
took that cost a total of $500,000, Congressman Lieu.
  Mr. TED LIEU of California. Oh, that is correct Sorry. I took your 
spot.

  Mr. GALLEGO. That is all right. All is forgiven.
  Mr. TED LIEU of California. Well, there are just so many folks.
  The next person we have is former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, 
who also was fired. He spent $12 million of taxpayers' money in fees to 
consultants in an attempt to downsize and restructure the State 
Department.
  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.

                              {time}  1215

  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.
  Mr. TED LIEU of California. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. GALLEGO. I yield to the gentleman from California.
  Mr. TED LIEU of California. Mr. Speaker, but wait. There is more on 
Scott Pruitt.
  In addition to his waste of taxpayers' money, he also got a 
sweetheart deal

[[Page H3307]]

from lobbyists in Washington, D.C. He was able to get a lease for just 
$50 a night--something you can't really get anywhere near Capitol 
Hill--and he only had to pay on the nights that he was there, even 
though the lease said that the landlord had to keep it open for 6 
months--it was on demand and he could go there any time--oh, and, by 
the way, his daughter could also basically stay as well. When you put 
out the numbers, that agreement was two to three times less than what 
any ordinary citizen could have gotten.
  This culture of corruption has now led to a Cabinet of corruption. I 
don't care whether you are a Republican or a Democrat or an 
Independent, this is just not acceptable. It is time that the American 
taxpayer speak out and tell the Trump administration: We have had 
enough. You need to start firing these officials who are wasting 
taxpayers' money and getting sweetheart deals for lobbyists.
  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.
  Mr. TED LIEU of California. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. GALLEGO. I yield to the gentleman from California.
  Mr. TED LIEU of California. Mr. Speaker, in fact, this administration 
has fertilized the swamp. It is tremendously, bigly huge right now. We 
have lobbyists who have inappropriate deals with Cabinet officials, we 
have Cabinet officials spending a lot of taxpayers' money to live up 
their luxury lifestyle of first-class jets, of luxury hotels, and of 
trips they don't need to take. This is simply not acceptable. This is 
exactly the opposite of what the President ran on, and the voters are 
going to know this this November.
  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.
  Mr. TED LIEU of California. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. GALLEGO. I yield to the gentleman from California.
  Mr. TED LIEU of California. Mr. Speaker, Congressman Gallego and I 
are writing an open letter to the American taxpayers that is going to 
contain all of these facts, with the sources cited, so that the 
American people can see for themselves the huge waste of taxpayers' 
money from the Cabinet of corruption.
  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.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair would remind Members to direct all 
remarks to the Chair and to formally yield and reclaim time when under 
recognition.

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