Ron Paul’s libertarian-leaning ideology generates many barbs from his critics. But he has always earned respect for his consistency.
Until now.
In a rare and blatant demonstration of hypocrisy, the Republican presidential candidate spent $52,000 of taxpayers’ dollars flying first class from the campaign trail to his home state of Texas.
According to an investigative report by the Associated Press, Paul chose to charge the taxpayers for those flights rather than bill the costs to his campaign.
The anti-government candidate, Paul flew first class on at least 31 round-trip flights and 12 one-way flights since May 2009 when he was traveling between Washington and his district in Texas, according to an AP review of his congressional office expenses. Four other round-trip tickets and two other one-way tickets purchased during the period were eligible for upgrades to first-class after they were bought, but those upgrades would not be documented in the expense records.
And that only represents his flight schedule prior to the Iowa caucuses. When all the travel records are posted, obviously the numbers will go up.
In addition, these were not flights required by congressional matters suddenly popping up in Paul’s district. Paul has maintained a quirky campaign schedule, sometimes taking a few days off just before a primary or caucus. And the records show that most of the flights for the congressman were purchased well in advance, and few schedule changes were necessary.Nearly two-thirds of the 49 tickets were purchased at least two weeks in advance, and 42 percent were bought at least three weeks in advance, the AP’s review found.
