I know our President-Elect fancied a private jet from time to time back in the ole' Senate days...........
I find it utterly amusing how some people will hear a story, then take 1/5th of it to turn it into the story they want the rest of us to believe. I hardly consider flying in a private jet 9 times (all in his 1st year in the US Congress "Fancying a private jet". May I suggest starting with the 2nd paragraph posted below.
As for Pelosi, who by the way I can't stand, the original aircraft was a GIII, not a GV. She wanted a plane that could make her hometown (SFO) out of DC non-stop. At the time, her new position as Speaker of the House required she use the USAF for travel because of her position in the line of sucession (#3). That was started after 9/11 and Dennis Hastert used it everytime he traveled. She told an aide that she wanted to go nonstop, and if they could not do that, she would just take the airlines. Aide made the call, and the media made something out of it that it wasnt. Bush even defened her, relaying the story I just told. This was all started when the USAF told her she may not be able to go nonstop to SFO in a GIII! WTF? Every G1159 pilot on this msg board was trying to figure that one out. 3000 NM in a GIII is just another day's work in that airplane 365/24/7.
From the NYTimes in 2006: (Obama Announced in early 2007, almost a year after this article was published.)
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/08/politics/08lobby.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print
Fight Looms on Lawmakers' Use of Corporate Jets
By
SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
Correction Appended
WASHINGTON, March 7 — Senator Barack Obama flew at least nine times on corporate jets last year, traveling to fund-raisers in New York and San Francisco, home to Chicago and to Rosa Parks's funeral in Detroit. Each time, he reimbursed the plane's owners at first-class rates, as Senate rules require.
But Mr. Obama, freshman Democrat from Illinois, felt queasy about this perk of Senate life, so he said he gave it up.
"This is an example where appearances matter," he said. "Very few of my constituents have a chance to travel on a corporate jet."
As the Senate looks at changes in lobbying laws this week after the
Jack Abramoff scandal, a big fight will be over limiting lawmakers' use of corporate jets. Critics like Mr. Obama want an end to the practice, or at least substantial rate increases. Other lawmakers, in both parties, say travel on corporate planes is necessary in modern politics.
The Abramoff imbroglio spotlighted lobbyist-paid golf excursions to Scotland. But another kind of travel, on company-owned planes, has long been an open secret of life here. Lawmakers travel in style at bargain prices without airline delays and security checks while companies, who often send their lobbyists along, gain access and a chance to build good will.
"It's an enormous discount for most of these flights, a tiny fraction of what it actually costs to operate the plane," said Norman Ornstein, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute who testifies frequently on changing lobbying laws. "It leaves when you want to leave. It goes where you want it to go when you want it to go there. You don't have to go through the normal security, and you get a lot more than peanuts."
Candidates spent at least $3.6 million reimbursing corporations for air travel from 2001 to 2005, according to an analysis made public on Monday by Political Money Line, an organization that tracks campaign spending. The trips are so ingrained that last year
Representative Tom DeLay of Texas, the former House Republican leader, was transported to Texas by R. J. Reynolds Tobacco, a subsidiary of Reynolds American, to his arraignment on charges related to campaign financing.
"It's not only a perk," Senator Russell D. Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, said, "but a serious abuse that should be stopped."
Mr. Feingold said he always flew on commercial planes.
Mr. Feingold, along with a group that includes Mr. Obama and Senator
Rick Santorum, Republican of Pennsylvania, is calling for measures to require lawmakers who use corporate jets to pay their share of the cost. Experts say that could run five times the first-class fare or more. Senators from big states like California and Alaska or rural states where air travel is sparse say such an increase would make it next to impossible to see constituents and keep up with speaking engagements and fund-raising.
Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, uses a plane owned by her husband, Richard C. Blum, an investment banker, and reimburses him.
"I flew from Colorado to L.A. to San Diego to San Francisco to Sacramento, back to L.A., to San Bernardino and back to San Francisco," Ms. Feinstein said of a week's itinerary.
An opponent of the increase, she said: "I couldn't do it. It's too expensive."
Not every lawmaker has access to a family-owned plane. Most turn to companies for help. Mr. Obama flew twice last year on jets owned by Archer Daniels Midland, the agricultural giant. The Political Money Line analysis found US Tobacco, Federal Express and Baron & Budd, a Texas law firm whose founder, Fred Baron, is a major Democratic fund-raiser, were the top three recipients of reimbursement for corporate travel.
A spokesman for US Tobacco, Mike Bazinet, said that it received more requests for planes than it could fulfill and that it generally sent a representative on the flights. A spokeswoman for Federal Express, Kristin Krause, said it was policy to do just that. Ms. Krause rejected the notion that FedEx lobbyists had undue access.
"When a member of Congress is on a trip and has to go somewhere," she said, "they do not want to talk to anybody on the airplane. They get on the airplane and they either read or sleep or they talk to their staff person. They don't want to talk to anybody from FedEx."
Regulations on corporate jets date from 30 years ago, when the first campaign finance laws passed after the Watergate scandal, said Kenneth A. Gross, a Washington lawyer who advises corporations on complying with campaign finance laws.
If the travel is campaign related, the Federal Election Commission requires reimbursement at first-class rates when a commercial airline serves the destination. If there is no commercial service, reimbursement is at charter rates, which could be far higher. The Senate and House have rules that are similar but not identical to those of the commission.
Some lawmakers like Senator Saxby Chambliss, Republican of Georgia, say the answer is simple — disclosure.
"The way you get there is less important than what you do while you're there," said Mr. Chambliss, who spent more on corporate jet travel than any other incumbent senator, the Political Money Line said.
Mr. Chambliss said he never spoke to a lobbyist "about any particular issue" on his trips, and Mr. Obama's aides said no lobbyist had ever flown with him on a private flight.
But Mr. Obama, who said he had never been on a corporate jet before becoming a senator, said he had come to view corporate jets as a way to circumvent the limits on so-called soft money campaign contributions.
"I said to my staff, 'We may be following the rules but it's hard for me to reconcile this,' " he said.
Asked how he gets around now, he said, "Commercial, baby."
