When asked, HHS officials declined to confirm any details of Price's travel, or state his reasons for eschewing commercial flights, or provide any information on who paid for those flights, or share how many charter trips he has actually taken since he joined the Cabinet back in February. (Transparency!) Since each organization that hosted Price told Politico that they didn't pay for his travel arrangements, though, determining who will foot the bills for these little jaunts seems like a grim process of elimination situation that ends with "The taxpayers, dummy."

At a time when Congress, in the name of "fiscal responsibility," is considering a bill that would gut billions in health care spending that benefits primarily low- and middle-income Americans, the same HHS secretary who wants deep cuts to his own department electing to blow tens of thousands of dollars flitting around the country on a charter plane is a decidedly bad look. But hey, at least there aren't any comically on-the-nose clips on the Internet of then-Congressman Price indignantly ranting on cable news about the utter outlandishness of spending federal tax dollars on the use of private jets. That would be embarrass—

An HHS spokesperson did assert that the secretary's travel "is done in complete accordance with Federal Travel Regulations." It's important, you see, to understand that Tom Price isn't a lawbreaker. He's just a oafish hypocrite whose crusade for "responsible government spending" stops the moment he realizes he still has to fly in coach class.

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