Did Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg get caught with his hand in the cookie jar? Because his excuse for using private jets sounds a bit shaky to me.
According to National Review,
The Department of Transportation (DOT) announced on Monday afternoon that it will be conducting an audit of Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s use of private jets.
The agency’s Office of the Inspector General noted that the investigation into Buttigieg will seek “to determine whether the Office of the Secretary complied with Federal regulations, policies, and procedures regarding executive travel on DOT aircraft.”
Buttiegieg responded on Twitter, noting he was “glad this will be reviewed independently so misleading narratives can be put to rest.”
Indeed. In the spirit of transparency, let’s look at all the records. And if Buttigieg does what Biden administration people do, he will fight transparency like a cornered wildcat.
Buttigieg continues his tweet:
“Bottom line: I mostly fly on commercial flights, in economy class. And when I do use our agency’s aircraft, it’s usually a situation where doing so saves taxpayer money.”
Say what?
I’d really like to know exactly how taking a private jet saves taxpayer’s money.
As a flying taxpayer, I have often wanted to take a private jet. And not a single time would it have saved me money? Just to be on the safe side, I looked it up…again.
Here are the costs based on the calculator from this website:
Using the lowest price of roughly $20,000, I could not fly myself an 8 friends for less than it costs to fly commercial.
And if Buttigieg wants us to believe time is of the essence, I say prove it. It took him almost three weeks to get to the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. He could have taken the train for that excursion. Actually, he could have ridden a bike to that incident and arrived earlier than he did.
Fox News Digital reported that Secretary Buttigieg used at least 18 Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) jets during his tenure. The cost of those 18 flights, along with accompanying staff, according to a recent Washington Post story, amounted to just over $40,000.
Apparently Buttigieg has the hookup on executive jet services. Or should we question the veracity of the $40,000? Let’s do the math, shall we?
According to the numbers, it only cost Buttigieg $2,222 per flight to use an executive jet service. I looked up the cost of fuel for a medium size jet.
Depending on the size of the jet, it could require anywhere between 50 and 600 gallons of fuel per hour. As a result, the cost of fueling a private jet ranges from $2,000 to $30,000.
Clearly you can see that the low-end cost is $2,000. That doesn’t include the pilot and other amenities. So I’m anxious to find out if the former little city mayor took advantage of taxpayers. I’m going to bet you that Buttigieg’s 18 trips costs a lot more than the $40,000 reported.
Of course, we didn’t expect Buttigieg to be forthcoming. Like his own family says, he’s just calls him a liar.
