Oh you banks.
Flight records show numerous occasions when banks receiving federal money have flown their planes to destinations near resorts or executives' vacation homes, including spots in Europe, Mexico, the Caribbean, south Florida and Aspen, Colo. In some cases, it's clear that bank executives were traveling for personal reasons; for other flights, many of which were over weekends or holidays, the passengers and purpose couldn't be established.
Regions Financial Corp. of Birmingham, Ala., received $3.5 billion from the Treasury Department's Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, on Nov. 14. Twelve days later, the day before Thanksgiving, two Regions jets left Birmingham within minutes of each other, bound for a small airport in West Virginia.
The destination: the historic Greenbrier resort, where the bank's chief executive, C. Dowd Ritter, and family members spent four nights over the holiday, according to a person familiar with his accommodations.
And Citigroup:
At Citigroup, two days after the bank canceled the jet order Mr. Obama criticized, former Chief Executive Sanford Weill boarded a Citigroup-owned plane for a flight to a small airport at Saranac Lake in New York state's woodsy Adirondack region. Flight records show it was the seventh trip a Citigroup plane had made to Saranac Lake, near where Mr. Weill has a vacation home, since the bank first received federal aid last fall.
The flight returned to its point of origin, in Westchester County north of New York City, on Sunday, Feb. 1. That same day, Mr. Weill announced he was waiving his contractual right to use Citigroup aircraft. His spokesman said Mr. Weill "cares deeply about the future of Citi and recognizes the extraordinary commitment by the American taxpayer."
That plane, a Bombardier Global Express, sat on the ground at Cabo for eight days, FAA records obtained by the Journal show. The cost to Citigroup of the round-trip flight was about $33,500, according to Conklin & de Decker, a consulting firm based in Orleans, Mass., that was asked to make an estimate.
A spokesman for Citigroup said personal use of company planes is limited to certain executives, who are encouraged to fly commercial when possible.
When possible, don't spend $30,000 to fly the jet taxpayers helped you to keep.
-John Byrne
Then they should have to repay to the government the cost of those flights.
These bankers make me sick. They are clueless, pampered babies. They imagine they are all-powerful and are treated like demi-gods by their minions who scamper about making sure the boss gets what he/she wants. It does not matter that their lifestyles are funded by taxpayers. As Leona Helms said, only the little people pay (or care) about taxes. Guys like Weill just laugh at us poor peons who worry daily how we will pay the mortgage, buy groceries and afford health insurance. While the bankers rip off the public, they seem to be immune to any responsibility for their actions. These guys should spend a few years in prison, cleaning toilets and doing laundry. They are mostly crooked.