People (if you could even call them that) are upset at the head of the Environmental Protection Agency & the outrage is extra stupid.
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt was attacked by cable TV talking heads on Wednesday (even the hacks at Fox News took shots at him). Now he's defending his decision to take a $50 a day condo rental from the wife of a lobbyist (who just so happens to be a friend of his from back in Oklahoma). As if the act of renting a cheap condo wasn't irrelevant enough, Democrats are also attacking Pruitt because two of his employees are earning a livable wage while they work in our nation's capitol (I'm not kidding - that's what this is about).
Let's address the outrage over the condo first, because it's two scoops of stupid in a dumb sundae. Scott Pruitt essentially rented a really cheap room from the wife of an old friend in Oklahoma. He saved a lot of money and now people are mad at him because of this news. He did this, ironically enough, as other high ranking officials in the federal government were being accused of spending too much money on travel and office supplies. There's no proof renting this office had any effect on how he did his job. Zero. None. It's just a coincidence that the person who rented him the condo is the wife of a lobbyist. Is she a lobbyist? Nope. Did he do any special favors to the lobbyists because of this business relationship? No, sir.
This is nothing more than a cheap talking point from Democrats to attack a man who is ideologically against everything they believe in. They support statism, he supports liberty. They support fear-based policies, he supports the free market. Don't be confused - they don't care about the condo rental. They just needed a reason to attack him. Accept reality. That's the sum total of what this is about.
Now let's talk about the outrage over his employees. In March, Pruitt approached the White House and asked for pay raises for two of his closest aides, Sarah Greenwalt and Millan Hupp. Pruitt asked to bump Greenwalt’s salary to $164,200 from $107,435 and Hupp’s to $114,590 from $86,460. Since the employees were political appointees, the White House needed to sign off on it. According to The Atlantic, someone at the EPA used a little-known provision in the Safe Drinking Water Act to skirt around the White House and green light the salary increases. Pruitt claims he didn't know about use of the provision, and he's probably telling the truth. Employee salaries are not the primary focus of the head of the EPA. He's got way bigger fish to fry in his day-to-day routine. The blame on this more likely falls on Ryan Jackson, the chief of staff at the EPA. But even placing blame on Jackson would seem pointless, because these Federal employees were just following the rules. Don't like the law? Change it! On a normal day the people in the DNC would be praising the Safe Drinking Water Act and the fact that it contains obscure provisions about employee salaries is exactly the kind of thing they would normally support.
So basically Pruitt is in "trouble" because someone at the EPA followed the law in order to help two of staff members earn an amount of money that will allow them to survive in one of the most expensive cities on Earth. Pruitt didn't create the provision, but two of his cabinet members used it to acquire a reasonable salary in one of the most expensive cities on Earth. If you think $164,000 or $114,000 is a lot of money, normally you'd be right. But not if you live in Washington DC. Seriously, if you live 10 miles outside of Washington DC the average cost of a two-bedroom apartment is about $2700 a month. And forget about buying a home - only millionaires can afford to buy houses inside The Beltway. So earning an annual salary in the low six figure mark barely allows these two people to survive in Washington DC while also supporting their families back in their home states. It might sound bad, but this is what it costs to survive in DC.
Pruitt is also being attacked for his travel costs, which are actually pretty tame. According to reports, Pruitt spent between $2,000 and $2,600 on flights back to his home in Oklahoma. He also dropped between $1,400 to $4,000 on flights to New York, Boston and Texas, according to the report.
So we're supposed to be upset because the Secretary of the EPA spent $6000 on travel costs? Seriously? He's been the EPA boss for almost two years. His plane tickets have to cost something - you can't fly for free. Heck, Carson wanted to spend a similar amount of money on a dining room set. The difference here being travel is actually necessary for Pruitt to do his job.
Seriously, if this is all we have to be upset about we are extremely lucky. Pruitt is a vast improvement from the last person we had in this job.
Maybe y'all forgot about the time Obama's EPA "accidentally" caused a mine spill that released three million gallons of toxic water into the environment and contaminated wildlife all over Colorado and surrounding states. Remember that little doozy? Compare that to Scott Pruitt's $6000 in travel costs and suddenly the outrage about this guy looks awfully pale. To put this into perspective, the state of Utah claims the Colorado mine spill cost them an estimated $1.9 billion in clean up costs. Last time I checked, $1.9 billion is a heck of a lot more than $6000 in plane tickets, but I'm no CPA.
During Obama's time in office, the EPA was used to attack businesses, harass farmers and basically do the exact opposite of what it was intended to do - clean up the environment. Meanwhile Scott Pruitt is doing everything he can to fix the EPA, which was a bureaucratic Colorado-Mine-Spill sized disaster for American citizens and tax payers in the 8-years that preceded this administration. Let's make something abundantly clear: we will never find a better EPA Chief than Scott Pruitt. Scott Pruitt is a small government advocate's dream come true. This is exactly the kind of guy we need in this position and what he's been accused of doing is silly and practically irrelevant. We're lucky to have him in this position. Damn lucky.