Tom Price was fired from HHS for not watching his
expenses. Like EPA Scott Pruitt, he let the “deep state” staff manage his expenses. Trump quickly concluded that wasn’t
good enough.
At EPA - The Buck Starts Or Stops At Pruitt. Either he willfully spent what he wanted, or has failed as
a leader and executive by allowing for the wasteful spending to take place,
4/26/18.
President Harry Truman famously had a sign on his desk: “The buck
stops here.” Given what we know about recent events at the Environmental
Protection Agency, it appears that Administrator Pruitt thinks that the buck
stops far down the line, blaming excessive spending in multiple areas on staff.
His security staff person was responsible for first class flights
and unprecedented expenditures on security; unnamed staff were faulted for the
process and amount of gigantic raises for his Oklahoma aides that followed him to EPA (an
increase of $56,000 for one staff member); and the demotions or
reassignment of staff members who
questioned his profligacy was simply routine.
Administrator Pruitt’s spending habits
at EPA have repeatedly demonstrated a certain level of contempt for taxpayers
and the public. At this point, the list of outrageous spending items is well
known: the $43,000 sound proof
phone booth; a
new, tricked-out vehicle (while a perfectly good Chevy
Tahoe leased for the administrator months before sits idle) ; $163,000 in first class
flights (including
a suspicious number of trips to his home state of Oklahoma); and the largest
and most expensive security detail in the history of the agency.
There are so many things wrong with this
pattern of behavior it is hard to know where to start. Actually, we think maybe
the best place to start is the phone booth.
Let’s provide a little context to this
purchase. Cabinet members and other senior officials from time to time need to
review classified documents and have conversations about classified
information. The security procedures require that classified information is
reviewed and discussed in what is called a Secure Compartmentalized Information
Facility, or SCIF. The
EPA already has two SCIFs. So if Mr. Pruitt needed to have sensitive, secret
conversations about environmental issues he had a place to go.
But, as Mr. Pruitt acknowledged in his
testimony this week, the phone booth in his office is not a SCIF. So if he is
going to have sensitive conversations that involved classified information, he
still needs to go to one of the SCIFs in the building. Sometimes a sound proof
private phone booth is just a sound proof phone booth. Evidently so he can have
private conversations without people eavesdropping. Think about that: a cabinet
member with a large office, with a door, spent $43,000 of taxpayer dollars to
reduce the possibility of his staff eavesdropping on him. Is closing the door
and talking quietly not enough? Was Get Smart’s Cone of Silence available?
And, let’s not forget, the initial
finding of the Government Accountability Office (GAO – the nonpartisan watchdog
agency of Congress) is that the phone booth
expenditure violates the Anti-deficiency Act restrictions on expenditures not authorized by
Congress.
Many members of Congress, the president,
and several prominent
former officials have
said that Mr. Pruitt’s success in pursuing the president’s agenda should be the
focus, and all these pesky complaints about spending and ethics are just
attempts to derail the Trump administration’s agenda to reduce regulations.
This defense is almost laughable. Of course the president can and should
appoint someone who shares his views. But it is hard to believe there is no one
available who shares Mr. Trump’s goals who has better judgment and takes his or
her fiduciary duty to taxpayers more seriously.
But here’s the good news: for perhaps
the first time since President Trump took office, Congress looks like it will
exercise its oversight authority in looking into Mr. Pruitt’s profligate
spending and ethically questionable conduct. House Oversight and Government
Committee chairman Trey Gowdy (R-SC) has announced that the
committee will be investigating Mr. Pruitt’s spending habits. This is a welcome
action: the checks and balances of our system depends on the legislative branch
providing oversight of the executive branch, regardless whether we have united
or divided government.
We’ve always noted that how public
officials – be it in Congress or the Executive branch – spend taxpayer dollars
on their own needs provides a lens into their
budgetary soul. If they
waste money on office expenses, they’re going to waste taxpayer dollars writ
large. There will never be a time when all of the country agrees with the
policies of any given president or cabinet member – that is the beauty of the
diversity and freedom we enjoy in this country. But taxpayers need to be able
to trust that cabinet officials understand that taxpayer dollars should never
be wasted. Mr. Pruitt’s spending excesses can only be explained by one of two
ways. Either he willfully spent what he wanted, without regard to saving public
dollars. Or, if in fact his staff is responsible for all of the errors, he has
failed as a leader and executive by allowing for the wasteful spending to take
place. Take your pick. But in either scenario, taxpayers can’t afford Mr.
Pruitt.
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody
GA Tea Party Leader
No comments:
Post a Comment