Tom Price Apologized For All Those Expensive Charter Flights & Promises That He’ll Pay You Back

Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price said Thursday that he will reimburse the government “for a fraction of the costs of his flights on charter planes in recent months” after receiving sharp criticism from both sides of the aisle for the expensive actions, reports the Washington Post.

House and Senate investigators are working hard to get Price and other Cabinet members to disclose how often they’ve relied on non-commercial flights to get across the United States and overseas. With the budget cuts many of these politicians are seeking, their habit of relying on expensive trips on private aircrafts is hitting a bit of a sour note with many. Price is under especially intense scrutiny. President Donald Trump publicly reprimanded him on Wednesday and suggested he might get fired over all of this. Given the sheer amount of taxpayer money Trump and his family have spent over the past eight months, it’s hard not to see the irony there.

The magnifying glass Price suddenly finds his traveling habits beneath isn’t exactly unwarranted; Politico initially estimated he spent more than $400,000 on the use of chartered jets. On Thursday, they reported his White House approved flights to Europe, Asia and Africa alone cost over $500,000. Price has agreed to pay back $51,887.31 of that.

Charmaine Yoest, his assistant secretary for public affairs, defended his actions, saying he needed the flights around America to get out of D.C. and connect with “the real American people.” She also defended his trips overseas, saying it was necessary travel in regard to global health security issues. While that may be true, especially in the case of his 2014 trip regarding the Ebola outbreak, covering the cost of his wife traveling with him feels slightly less necessary.

He’s not the only one coming under fire for his (mis)use of private air travel, either. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt has taken at least four non-commerical and military flights since mid-February, costing taxpayers more than $58,000. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke took a flight from Las Vegas to his home in Montana that cost taxpayers $12,375 according to a department spokesman. Zinke also used private flights for trips to the Virgin Islands.

Price has apologized for “not being sensitive enough” to his concern for taxpayers, saying he’s fought for them his whole career and that he regrets the concerns his actions have raised over the use of taxpayer dollars.

Like many of us, Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), who chairs the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies, remains concerned over the juxtaposition between the spending on private travel by Price and others while they simultaneously propose immense budget cuts. In an interview, he said, “Optics matter in politics.”