People in the Trump administration have a habit of wasting a ton of money on the dumbest stuff:
• Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price resigned after having spent $900,000 on airfare in a mere seven months.
• Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson spent $31,000 to order a new “dining room set”—I don’t know why there’s a dining room in the HUD office and I don’t have the energy to find out—and then lied about it.
• Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke spent $139,000 on three sets of doors.
• EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt spent $43,000 on a phone booth.
Also in this elite club is Secretary of the Treasury Steve Mnuchin, who—per official documents newly obtained by the (partisan Democratic) watchdog group CREW—has spent a robust $995,443.81 on eight military jet trips since taking office last February. (CREW observes that Mnuchin has “apparently has never used commercial aircraft” during his tenure; he has previously defended his use of military jets by arguing that “there are times when I need secure communications to be in touch with the president and the National Security Council” during flights. LOL. The National Security Council. He’s the secretary of the treasury! LOL. “Sir, the North Korean missiles are inbound.” “My God—where’s Mnuchin?”)
Mnuchin was sworn in on Feb. 13, 2017, which means he’s spent $2,507.42 per day since then on airfare. That’s just barely less than it would have cost him to book a last-minute first-class weekend round-trip flight from New York to Los Angeles and back every day. You almost have to admire it!
