February 8, 2007
The Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, promised to impose tough new ethics restrictions. Now she wants a huge government plane of her own to fly herself and anyone she wants to take with her to her San Francisco district.
Pelosi’s office claims it’s for security, though she has always flown commercial before. We learn from this that former speaker Dennis Hastert had access to a government plane to fly him home to Illinois.
There are already too many perks for members of congress and the last thing they need is government planes. They are supposed to be serving us and not we, them.
Maybe if these people had to endure what the rest of us face while flying commercially they would be a little more sensitive to our needs and not ask us to pay for their wants.
For Nancy Pelosi to ask for a government plane as a personal convenience is the kind of arrogance that brought down the Republican majority. It sure doesn’t take as long for power to corrupt as it used to.
Cal Thomas is a nationally syndicated columnist based in Washington, D.C.
