Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price said Thursday that he regrets his numerous trips aboard private aircraft and pledged to reimburse the government for the cost of his seat, a promise that will only cover a fraction of the estimated costs, according to a source familiar with the plan.
In a statement, Price said that he "regret[s] the concerns that [his official travel] has raised regarding the use of taxpayer dollars" and that he "will write a personal check to the U.S. Treasury for the expenses of my travel on private charter planes."
"The taxpayers won't pay a dime for my seat on those planes,” said Price.
The source with knowledge of Price's intentions said that the secretary will pay $51,887.31, about 13 percent of the $400,000 that Politico estimated was spent on as many as 26 chartered flights. Price confirmed that he would pay for his "portion" of the total cost in an interview with Fox News Thursday afternoon.
"All of my political career I've fought for the taxpayers," said Price in his statement. "It is clear to me that in this case, I was not sensitive enough to my concern for the taxpayer. I know as well as anyone that the American people want to know that their hard-earned dollars are being spent wisely by government officials.
If Price REALLY cared about the taxpayers then he would be digging much deeper to find the funds to repay the actual cost of these flights, which ONLY took to the air on his behalf, instead of attempting to weasel out of taking full responsibility for wasting our money.
By the way that $400,000 estimate from Politico may be a little low, as other news outlets have suggested that Price may have wasted almost a million dollars of taxpayer money on private flights to places easily accessible by commercial air.
It should be mentioned that Obama's HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, only used a private plane ONE time. And that was to reach a remote village in Alaska, and I can confirm that there is literally no other way to get out into the bush than to charter a plane.
For his part Trump is apparently pissed off that this story is making headlines right now, and has made some noise about firing Price.
However if he does so he is only exposing his own hypocrisy, since it has been well reported that Trump himself is costing the American taxpayers multiple millions of dollars to pay for the Secret Service security to protect his extended family in a number of locations, and to pay for his own frequent trips to Trump properties like Mar a Lago.
And there are other outrageous expenses coming from this administration, one of which we documented just yesterday concerning that story about the EPA administrator and his $25,000 "cone of Silence."
Let's face it, Donald Trump did not win the White House to "drain the swamp."
He won the White House to bankrupt the country.
Update: Price has now resigned.
How many members of the administration is this now?
