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Easleys took lovely trips abroad; we got the bill
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Published: July 3, 2008
It's a rhetorical question with an obvious answer, but one that nonetheless bears asking in light of Gov. Mike "Tax Hike" Easley's lame attempt at explaining the extravagant (and taxpayer-borne) costs of overseas junkets that he and first lady Mary Easley enjoyed.
Who is dumber, a European restaurateur who tries to sell a cheeseburger and onion rings combo for $60 or the rube from Brunswick County who pays $60 for it?
Hmmm.
Yet Easley used that very example in a news conference Tuesday in which he defended the $109,000 of our money that his wife spent during a 2007 trip to France and one in May to Eastern Europe, and the $170,000 that the first couple and several others blew on a trip to Italy in April.
"Let's be honest about it, a cheeseburger and onion rings is $60 over there," Easley said.
Say, what? Perhaps Easley was confused and bought his burger not in Rome but in Amsterdam, where smoking dope is an accepted pastime.
"I suggest that maybe he was sending (a) chauffeur to get those cheeseburgers, and that's where he got that dollar figure," said state Sen. Phil Berger, R-Rockingham.
‘Vital' Euro-junkets
All joking aside, the news of the Easleys' profligate spending reported by the Raleigh News & Observer over the past week turns the stomach and has roiled officialdom in the state capital.
A few choice details:
□ On a nine-day, $170,000 trip to Italy in April, the state paid $51,000 for daily chauffeur service in a Mercedes Class S sedan.
Among other ostentatious items on that same trip, invoices for $599.84 and $508.24 for meals at two swank restaurants in Rome were submitted.
The official reason (excuse?) for the trip was that it was needed to recruit industry and pitch North Carolina as a tourist destination to Italians bored of the Riviera, the Alps and Venice.
□ Not to be outdone, Lady Easley racked up $109,000 in charges during trips to France, Estonia and Russia.
In May 2007, she ran up a $27,000 bill for chauffeur service in France, along with an executive assistant and a lucky state trooper sent along to provide security. We also paid $8,900 for fine French hotels and a Monet-themed tour.
In May, Lady Easley and an entourage of state arts officials -- including Winston-Salem's own Libba Evans, the head of the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources, blew more than $34,000 on first-class airfare alone.
The reason for that trip? Attracting "vital" art exhibits to state museums, said Staci Meyer, a spokeswoman for the cultural-resources department, presumably with a straight face.
Expensive parting gifts
The junketeering prompted Kevin Rogers, a tuned-in taxpayer from Winston-Salem, to fire off an e-mail yesterday to area legislators asking that they demand a full accounting from Lady Easley.
"Short of any miraculous payoff we received as a result of her trips, I think it only fair that the governor repay us for these trips out of his own pocket, not mine," Rogers wrote.
Rogers is correct, but we're never going to see a dime -- not from a governor who apparently thinks that he is entitled to more than just his $135,854 annual salary -- and his wife's now $170,000 a year gig as an executive at N.C. State University-- for his eight years in office.
With the governor on the way out in a few short months, perhaps The Easley Farewell World Tour can serve as a lesson to his two would-be replacements, Republican Pat McCrory and Democrat Bev Perdue.
McCrory, the mayor of Charlotte, was quick to pledge via e-mail that he would "take full responsibility for travel plans made by my administration and will ensure that arrangements do not waste taxpayers' dollars."
A spokesman for Lt. Gov. Perdue, David Kochman, answered succinctly when asked if she and her husband would pledge to swear off similar junkets: "Yes, they would."
■ Scott Sexton can be reached at 727-7481 or at ssexton@wsjournal.com.
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