$28,000 Spent Planning Aborted Junket : Representatives Decide to Stay Home Instead of Touring Europe

A group of House staff members spent more than $28,000 traveling to London, Paris, Rome and other European cities, planning a trip for lawmakers who then decided to stay home.

Rep. Frank Annunzio (D-Ill.), who planned and then scrapped the congressional trip, says he did not want to use a military plane during the U.S. invasion of Panama, which began while the advance team was in Europe.

But Rep. Doug Barnard Jr. (D-Ga.) says he suspects “cold feet” among House members worried about cold winter weather in Europe and bad publicity back home.

According to House records, the six-member advance party for the trip spent more than $28,000 for lodging, meals, commercial air transportation and other expenses between Dec. 13 and 20.

The lawmakers were to have followed in January, traveling by military jet to gather information on Europe’s move toward a unified financial system.

Aides to Annunzio and Barnard disagree over whether the January itinerary was set, since their respective advance men scouted different cities. They do, however, insist that the advance trip provided valuable insights that will be useful to House members despite the cancellation.

Curtis Prins, staff director of the Annunzio-led House Banking subcommittee on financial institutions, said the military jet would have taken members only to Strasbourg in France, London, Brussels and Rome. Those were the cities visited by Annunzio’s staffer on the advance mission, subcommittee economist Gregory Hallisey.

Barnard bristled over Annunzio’s decision to cancel the trip, maintaining it is vital that lawmakers planning to restructure the U.S. banking system learn firsthand about Europe’s movement toward unified financial services by 1992.

Annunzio said in an interview that he canceled the trip because “I could not in good conscience justify using military personnel” and equipment when the U.S. forces “were fighting and dying” in Panama.

He said the military jet transport, a version of the commercial Boeing 707, “might have been needed in Panama, and I wanted to make sure it would be available for that purpose.”

Barnard, in a separate interview, said, “I doubt if we’re that limited” in military equipment.