Travel Trouble Looming Large For Both Sides

The Boston Herald is asking some good questions about the travel expenses of a couple of democrats. By the time the smoke clears we may be throwing the scoundrels out on both sides of the aisle. One lives in hope.

Why does U.S. Rep. John Olver (D-Amherst) need to travel thousands of miles to hear the concerns of airport officials? The American Association of Airport Executives, which hosted the January aviation issues conference in Kona, is headquartered in a perfectly nice building, complete with conference rooms, across town from Olver's Washington office in Alexandria, Va.
But of course, Olver didn't need to go. He wanted to go. And who can blame him since the organization sprung for the $6,000 tab, and it's all perfectly legal.
And who can blame U.S. Rep. John Tierney (D-Salem) for taking his wife to Cancun, Mexico, and China so far this year, all $27,000 in costs picked up by the Aspen Institute, a Washington, D.C., think-tank?
In fact, voters can, and just might, blame them and their colleagues on both sides of the aisle at the ballot box if nothing is done to close a loophole in federal lobbying laws allowing members of Congress to travel the world - for free. A Washington Post report last week on the profligate use of corporate jets for congressional travel underscores the political danger.The banking scandal in 1991, when House members cashed 8,000 bad checks, resonated with voters, just as this travel scandal could. What taxpayer wouldn't want an all-expenses paid trip to Hawaii in the middle of a New England winter?

From the Boston Herald.