Congress puts no restrictions on its own

Bloomberg:

The U.S. Senate last month passed a measure limiting “luxury” spending for corporate travel by recipients of federal bailout funds. Two weeks later, about two dozen senators of both parties left town for political meetings on the Florida coast.

Hotel-industry leaders are seizing on those trips as ammunition in a campaign to get lawmakers and Obama administration to tone down the rhetoric against business travel, which they say is adding to their economic difficulties.

“It’s just the hypocrisy,” said Frank Fahrenkopf, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee who is president of the Washington-based American Gaming Association, one of the groups urging politicians to moderate the criticism. “We’ve got to have Washington stop beating up on us.”

On March 11, hotel executives including Jonathan M. Tisch, chairman of New York-based Loews Corp., which operates a chain of 18 hotels in North America, Bill Marriott, chairman of Bethesda, Maryland-based Marriott International Inc., the biggest U.S. lodging chain, and Jay Rasulo, chairman of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, a unit of Burbank, California-based Walt Disney Co. that operates its theme parks, met with President Barack Obama and three Democratic senators to express their concern.

The executives said the political attacks are having a broad effect on their business, even though the restrictions are intended to apply only to recipients of federal bailout money, and cancellations have been increasing as the rhetoric heats up.

“We’ve seen companies cancel meetings last minute, leaving 100 percent on the table just to avoid criticism and ridicule,” said Frits van Paasschen, president and chief executive of White Plains, New York-based Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc., the third-largest U.S. lodging company, who attended the White House meeting.

“We’ve also seen meeting planners move meetings from resort locations to city locations, at a greater cost to their companies, again, for optics’ sake,” he said.

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I blame Obama and his moral preening, that has been embraced by Democrats to the extent they want to stop others from doing what they do--travel for meetings at resort locations. The travel and entertainment sector is just one part of business that the Democrats are making war against. These guys should remember this come the next election when the Democrats come around for contributions.