Senate Democrats are charging taxpayers for a trip to Hawaii, Ice News has learned. The entire press staff of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee as of August 12 was in Maui, even though a field hearing there didn’t happen until August 17. Aw, a week in paradise on the taxpayers dime. Hey, it’s only money – and it’s not theirs.
The committee’s oversight field hearing, was scheduled for August 17 at 9:00 a.m. at the Maui Beach Hotel, will focus on “Strengthening Self-Sufficiency: Overcoming Barriers to Economic Development in Native Communities.”
Rick Manning from Americans for Limited Government, which first discovered the hearing, said it’s unbelievable that Hill staffers talking about fiscal responsibility would waste money on a trip toMaui.
“It’s outrageous that Senate Democrats have so little respect for the American taxpayer that in the same month they buried our credit rating, they’re heading to Hawaii to celebrate,” Manning said.
A committee staffer told reporters that the reason the hearing will be in Mauiis “mostly because it’s his [committee chairman Sen. Daniel Akaka’s] home state.” It’s unclear if the field hearing will focus on any issues relating at all to Hawaii, or if the reasoning for scheduling the trip there is only because Akaka will already be in Hawaii during the congressional recess.
The staffer said Akaka is the only senator who will attend.
The Democratic committee staffers used taxpayer funding to travel toHawaii a full week before their committee’s hearing date. When reporters called the committee’s Washington, D.C., office last week, a different staffer who answered the phone said all the committee’s communications staffers are already in Maui.
It’s unclear if other committee employees, in addition to 
communications staff, are also inMaui. It is standard practice for taxpayers to cover travel expenses for congressional committee staffers, but there’s no way to know at this point how much the trip will cost, unless staffers offer up the information.
Committee staff declined to answer specific questions about why the field hearing was scheduled in Maui, nor would they say how many of their colleagues were there, on their way there, or scheduled to travel there.
They deferred all questions to the committee’s press staff, which is already, in its entirety, in Maui. No one among the press staff in Maui has returned phone calls for comment.
The Party of the People, right? Why did the Democrats hold a meeting about Indian affairs inHawaii? Why not in Arizona, Oklahoma or Wisconsin, all off which have large populations of American Indians living there?
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