This morning, we posed a question about the news, now we’re posting the best comments. Join the conversation!

The Question of the Day: Should Tom Price lose his job over his $300K in private plane travel? From the comments, here are the answers:

Columbo:

No. An examination of the policies that govern when cabinet officials can charter planes should occur. The OMB should educate officials and their staffs to ensure that the travel for cabinet officials comply with existing rules and regulations. Any cabinet official who is not abiding within these rules should be notified and requested to follow the rules.

How would Elijah react if this was, say, an IRS official in the Obama admin? “This is a witchhunt…”

The Dems have been itching to do something like this ever since Secretary Price was named.

I Walton:

Instead of cooking up another issue directed at the new administration, we should look into travel practices and costs of the whole government, including past presidents as well as legislators where we’ll have accumulative data, and form some rules and place some restrictions.

My guess is that most official travel is unnecessary and a lot is simply harmful. That was certainly my impression after having been control officer, overseeing control officers, or just providing staff support for more than a dozen senior official visits, including two presidents two vice presidents, many Cabinet Secretaries, and many dozens of Codels and staff delegations.

Congressmen, for instance, would try to hit two or sometimes three countries in Central America in one day so that they would get their cash envelop for each country, plus per diem, even though they were usually housed and fed by the Embassy. Those envelops were among their first questions and sometimes only questions. Few had substantive reasons to visit in the first place.

Presidential and vice presidential visits were the worst. Their staffs and security apparatus would push the host country around with arrogance and indifference, but none of the visits I was associated with had substantive matters to accomplish. There was one exception with substantive purpose. One President came to push his high priority trade agenda with the Japanese, but used his bilateral with the Prime Minister to raise a personal constituent interest that was not part of his administration’s priority agenda. In the process, he undercut the US position on Civil Air and demonstrated that the threats and postures we all used to move the administration’s trade agenda were not really that important to him.

We had to spend the next week denying the Japanese version of the talks. Ours was a lie. After that visit the Japanese knew that it was all pretend and that they only had to provide a good story and a photo op and that is what happened six months later.

Valiuth:

Sure. He is basically worthless at the one thing he was supposed to be good at and now we find he is just abusing his office for perks. Fire him and make him pay the money back with interest.

Mrs. Ink:

Tom Price should be fired, pour encourager les autres. Firing him would be good symbolism.

Besides, if he is that stupid, why do we need him?

To answer my own question, he will probably get a wrist slap, because another confirmation hearing would drag on forever. Bah!