Government Spending For Lavish Trips for Bureaucrats

Daniel Doherty | June 22, 2011 11:43 AM

With debates heating up in Washington this week surrounding the debt crisis and millions of Americans suffering from lingering unemployment and a stagnant economy, the American tax-payer will be outraged to discover that for years government bureaucrats have been routinely sent on a luxurious trips around the world – including countries such as Australia, Sweden, the Netherlands, Scotland and England – to study foreign billboards and take pictures of foreign roads and highways.

The most recent trip – lasting seventeen days – included lavish dinners, fancy hotels and expensive cocktail parties. In the last decade alone, ABC News reports that these frivolous expenditures may cost the American tax-payer as much as $12 million dollars. Worst of all, the reports documenting their findings have gone largely unnoticed upon their return.

Given the deteriorating conditions of our roads and highways and the myriad of problems we face domestically, wouldn’t this money serve a better purpose on anything else here at home?

Over the years, I have become increasingly disenchanted with the wasteful tendencies of the federal government, but this is an all time low.