Tom Price meets with Donald Trump. Reuters.
Health and Human Services Director Tom Price has resigned after a scandal broke out over his use of expensive charter flights. Reuters. Price was using expensive charter flights for government business instead of commercial airliners or trains. This did not sit well with President Donald Trump who has ran as a candidate as someone who would cut waste. After Trump condemned the "optics" of the situation Price offered his resignation which was accepted by the President. Supposedly, Trump said that Price was a distraction from hurricane recovery and his tax plan and was quoted by a Reuters source saying "What was he thinking?"
My Comment:
I think this is one of those cases where a Washington insider, which Price is, was assuming that this was a status quo presidency. Under previous administrations I doubt this issue would have even come up. That doesn't mean I don't think it is serious, Price wasted a lot of tax payer money on this and from what I understand some of the travel was completely frivolous.
But this is a different White House. First of all, the media is so desperate for a scandal that they are closely watching all cabinet members for a way to embarrass or discredit Donald Trump. Had Barack Obama still been in office I doubt anyone in the media would have cared about this story or reported on it. It's all about hurting the Trump presidency, not cutting government waste and shame on Tom Price for giving them that opportunity.
And Price was a fool for thinking that Trump would have his back on this issue. In addition to the media concerns above, Price should have known that Trump campaigned on this kind of thing. He was elected in part to cut government waste and stupidity and taking chartered flights for no good reason is both. Of course Trump was going to have a problem with this!
I do have to say that Trump handled this issue very quickly. The scandal just happened and already Price is out the door. There was very little question that Price was going to get fired over this as opposed to other presidencies. He did the right thing but kicking Price out.
There is a problem of course and that is the fact that Trump is now down two cabinet officials. He still hasn't replaced John Kelley at Homeland Security. Price wasn't a critical member of the cabinet but it still hurts the Trump White House to lose yet another major adviser over this scandal.
One wonders if their might be more going on here. Price job was, in part, to run Obamacare and find a replacement and since all of the Obamacare repeal bills have failed perhaps Trump was angry with him? I mean it wasn't directly his fault, but it still might have soured the President on Price. Part of his role at Health and Human Services was to get senators to go along with Trump's preferred legislation and that didn't happen.
Certainly though, it is a lot easier to let go your Health and Human Services director when it's pretty clear that a new healthcare law isn't going to get passed anytime soon. I wonder if one of the three Obamacare repeal bills had passed, if Price might have stuck around. Right now Trump can afford to have the position go vacant for awhile but had one of those bills passed would he still be around? I'm not so sure.
As for the meat of the scandal itself, do I think it's a big deal? I would say so. I know that I don't like seeing this kind of waste from a government official. And some of the travel was truly trivial which should never happen. I think it is good that Price is going to pay back the money he used, but he never should have done this in the first place.
On the other hand, this scandal is pretty minor compared to some of the other things that have happened in Washington. A slight misallocation of funds is nothing compared to the massive amounts of graft and corruption happening in government right now. Sure it's a good thing that Price went down as it sends a message to everyone else, but there are bigger fish to fry. Let's hope they get caught pretty soon.
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