On this week's episode of Adventures in Shamelessness, Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price is racking up those miles! Except he won't be getting any points towards further flights, because Mr. Price—a humble government servant just trying to improve the nation's healthcare system for You, the Common Man—long ago decided he would only get around by private jet. According to an exquisitely detailed report in Politico Tuesday evening, Price has used thousands in taxpayer money to avoid flying commercial at least 26 times. Often, a commercial flight around the same time was readily available.

That includes a trip to Nashville in June, which saw the secretary attend two official events for less than 90 minutes combined. His entire time in Nashville was posted at five-and-a-half hours, though he did have time during the three-hour block in between events for a nice lunch with his son. (Price also owns a condo in Nashville.) That trip, which could only reasonably have been made on a Learjet 55, cost taxpayers nearly $18,000. That was well worth it to save Price the indignity of a commercial flight.

The Nashville trip offered even more commercial options. On June 6, Price took a Learjet 55 — a $17,760 round-trip flight, according to a federal contract — that departed from Washington Dulles International Airport at 9:12 a.m. ET and touched down in Nashville at 9:44 a.m. CT. Two commercial flights that morning followed similar itineraries. An American Airlines plane departed Reagan National Airport at 9:05 a.m. ET and landed in Nashville at 9:39 a.m. CT. A Southwest Airlines flight left Baltimore-Washington International at 9:18 a.m. ET and arrived in Nashville at 9:54 a.m. CT.

Commercial airline tickets with government discounts would have cost between $102 and $333 per person round-trip between the two cities, according to the U.S. General Services Administration.

Yes, it would've saved taxpayers 17 grand, but he would have had to arrive at a different airport for a flight that took off 15 minutes earlier! That means he would've had to secure a boarding pass and go through security. And he might even have run into a taxpayer who takes issue with one of the many reprehensible healthcare bills he backed. At least that was the fear of right-wing Thought Leader Erick Erickson—a man The New York Times has repeatedly offered space on its editorial page—who insisted Price could not rub shoulders with Everyday Americans because one of them might assassinate him:

That imminent danger might explain why Price took another private jet—a Dissault Falcon 2000—to St. Simons Island, Georgia, a day earlier than he was set to attend an event. It cost HHS $86,000 to shuttle the secretary between five states over four days, but Price was able to settle in for a bit on the "exclusive Georgia resort" island where he and his wife own land before he was called to do his solemn duty: Give a speech. After all, one does not arrive at St. Simons on a Sunday! You have be there for Friday night. Just ask Price—he knows the area well:

The trip to St. Simons Island, the largest of the “golden isles” on the coast of Georgia and a popular destination for well-heeled professionals from Atlanta and other Georgia cities, was also lightly scheduled...Both Price and his wife, a physician and a member of the Georgia state House of Representatives, have longstanding ties to the island. For years, Price held congressional fundraisers at the King and Prince Resort — the same venue that hosted the physicians’ retreat — often on the first weekend of August, the same days that he visited this year.

Anyway, some are trying to harsh Price's mellow with claims that all this is "unethical." Richard Painter, a White House ethics official under President George W. Bush, told Politico: "To use a charter flight on something that combines personal and government business, I think it’s highly unprofessional and really inappropriate." He added: “They’re playing games with the rules."

There's also the issue of those rules:

HHS has long maintained that Price, whose use of chartered aircraft is under investigation by the HHS inspector general, has not violated Federal Travel Regulations, which state that officials can charter a plane only if “no scheduled commercial airline service is reasonably available (i.e., able to meet your departure and/or arrival requirements within a 24-hour period, unless you demonstrate that extraordinary circumstances require a shorter period) to fulfill your agency's travel requirement.”

Don't they know that this is how we do things now? Just ask Steven Mnuchin, whose jet-fueled, taxpayer-funded escapades to Definitely Not Watch the Eclipse and Definitely Not Get a Free Flight to a European Honeymoon have garnered criticism of their own. The plutocrats and their friends don't fly commercial, and they sure as hell don't pay.

Jack Holmes Politics Editor Jack Holmes is the Politics Editor at Esquire, where he writes daily and edits the Politics Blog with Charles P Pierce.

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