My newest column at American Issues Project is live, titled Inappropriate Government Spending. Here’s an excerpt:

Their travels cost taxpayers about $13 million, ten times as much as Congressional travel cost in 1995. Destinations included Kuwait, Germany, France, China, Israel, Italy, Australia, Pakistan, and Belgium, among others. Some of these trips are surely needed. But some of them are more questionable. House Minority Leader John Boehner was revealed to be taking five lawmakers, all unnamed, on a trip “around the world”. Senator Richard Shelby was revealed to be taking a group of senators and their wives to Europe… for three weeks. All of this is, of course, on the taxpayers dime. And it just makes you have to wonder: are these trips business trip, or are they vacations? I would certainly love to see the itinerary.

All of this just goes to show that Congressional lawmakers have absolutely no shame, and no intentions of sharing the sacrificing Americans are undergoing. And sadly, while GOP politicians seem to be improving on their fiscal responsibility, this just goes to show that they haven’t changed their colors at all. They’re talking a big game because they know that it’s politically popular, but if the GOP still held the majority in Congress, they would be just as fiscally irresponsible as they were over the last eight years. It still wouldn’t come close to the spending debacle that the Democrats are currently enacting, but clearly none of them have learned anything. While Americans are doing everything they can just to scrape by, politicians in Congress are living it up as if they were Marie Antoinette with no tomorrow in sight.

Be sure to read the whole thing!