Is there anyone in the Trump regime who DOESN’T cheat taxpayers?

Taxpayers paid for European Vacation for Trump’s Veterans Affairs Chief

BY COLIN TAYLOR 

The Trump administration’s growing misuse of taxpayer money scandal continues to grow by the day. 

The Washington Post is now reporting that President Trump’s Veterans Affairs Secretary, David Shulkin, had the American taxpayer pick up the tab for his recent ten-day vacation in Europe.

While he did meet with British and Danish officials about veterans’ healthcare initiatives, he also spent “at least half” of his time sightseeing and shopping with his wife, enjoying a Wimbledon tennis game and touring historic sites.

The taxpayer also picked up the bill for his wife:

The agency said Friday that the government paid airfare for Merle Bari, Shulkin’s wife, because she was traveling on “approved invitational orders.” The government also provided a per diem for her meals, the agency said.

To add insult to injury, this trip was taken two weeks after he signed a memo ordering reviews of all business trips by VA officials to determine if it was “essential.”

“I expect this will result in decreased employee travel and generate savings within the Department of Veterans Affairs,” he wrote shortly before he bounding away on his personal Eurotrip.

On the other hand, President Obama’s VA chief, Robert McDonald, never took any foreign trips on taxpayer dime.

This news is just the latest in a string of embarrassing revelations that are snowballing into a full-blown scandal. 

Four members of the Trump administration – Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, Environmental Protection Agency Scott Pruitt, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke have spent a combined million dollars of taxpayer money in their cushy jaunts around the nation.

Of course, President Donald Trump has set the precedent for all of this outrageous corruption by squandering more in taxpayer money on his personal vacations than President Obama did in eight years. 

This blatant abuse of public funds cannot be allowed to go unpunished by the American people. The US Treasury is not a slush fund to pay for the luxurious travel of millionaires but used to serve and better the lives of the American people – for the many, not the few.

COLIN TAYLOR, MANAGING EDITOR,  GRADUATED FROM BENNINGTON COLLEGE WITH A BACHELOR'S DEGREE IN HISTORY AND POLITICAL SCIENCE. HE NOW FOCUSES ON ADVANCING THE CAUSE OF SOCIAL JUSTICE AND EQUALITY IN AMERICA.