A recent story at Bloomberg.com reported several hotel execs were upset with Congress and its hypocrisy related to luxury travel. After coming down hard on corporations for what it deemed excess, the Democratic and Republican Senatorial Campaign Committees held meetings at popular resorts in Florida.
Certainly Congress, and the mainstream media, need to back off the rhetoric over luxury travel and corporate meetings, but I'd be leery of backing Congress in a corner over this issue. Does anyone really want to force Christopher Dodd or any other big-name senator to publicly admit the meetings were a mistake and they shouldn't have held them, and wouldn't do the same in the future? The public is frothing over the perceived waste by companies and it's not like politicians haven't been known to grandstand before, so why push them into a position where they might make another statement against this perceived "excess," which in reality, is actually integral to the U.S. economy and its recovery. We need people spending, traveling and meeting, a point Stephen Rushmore recently made here.