One day members of the Senate Appropriations Committee went to the Pentagon for lunch and for a conference with the Secretary of Defense. The Pentagon sent automobiles to pick up the Senators; and, as they rode into the basement of the building, they saw row after row of long, sleek, shiny black Cadillacs. “I had not supposed,” said New Hampshire’s Republican Senator Norris Cotton afterward, “there were so many swank automobiles in the world.” The sight produced sharp criticism from members of the Appropriations Committee and much talk about Pentagonish extravagance.
The committee’s next visit was quite different. This time the Pentagon sent a rickety old bus to pick up the Senators, and, as it rattled along toward the Potomac, the Senators couldn’t help noticing a sign on the back of the driver’s seat: “This bus cost $14,000 and can be quickly converted into an ambulance.” And the bus delivered its passengers to the front door; there was no trip into the lower regions where they had seen all the luxury vehicles on their previous visit.
Source:
Boller, Paul F. “Congress and the President.” Congressional Anecdotes. New York: Oxford UP, 1991. 301. Print.
Original Source Listed:
Cotton, In the Senate, 188.
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