Limousine liberals have every right to their limos-I just don’t want to pick up the tab.
But that is what we are doing. As Geoffrey Norman notes on the Weekly Standard:
They are buying limousines in Washington. Lots of them. The number of government limousines increased by 73 percent during the first two years of the Obama administration. The official justification for the acquisition (with borrowed Chinese money) of all this rolling stock is “security.” Our bureaucrats, it seems, are not safe riding around in ordinary vehicles or, perish the thought, driving themselves to work. This, it seems, is especially true of those brave souls who toil at the State Department, which is where most of the limos have been put into service.
When is the last time you heard of an attempt on the undersecretary for economic, energy, and agricultural affairs? Or the special envoy for climate change? Is there a cabal somewhere secretly plotting to knock off the coordinator of reconstruction and stabilization?
One suspects not. Suspects, in fact, that the fancy wheels are just one more manifestation of a truth that is becoming more and more apparent every day. Namely, that for the political class-especially in Washington-these are the best of times.
Can our cosseted officials really understand what the rest of America is going through?
I always thought Nancy Pelosi might have had second thoughts about the way she rammed Obamacare through Congress if she’d had to have her ear bent by everyday citizens on commercial flights. But now I find that even officials whose name we don’t know are reducing their contact with the rest of us (at our expense!).
As I’ve noted before, I am always proud when I see that democracies can put on good formal ceremonies (such as state funerals, presidential inaugurations, etc.). I begrudge not a penny for ceremonies that put the dignity of our country in the spotlight. But the idea of setting up a bureaucratic class that sucks our money and separates itself from us infuriates me.