On September 29 after former Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) tom price's resignation went public, chief of staff Gen. John Kelly was given the power to approve the use of all travel by Cabinet officials. As part of his effort to "right the ship," the requirement of Kelly's approval was another step towards cracking down on issues that have been plaguing the administration from the beginning.

New procedures and controls for Trump's Cabinet

Over the last month, it was reported that Tom Price was just one of a handful of Cabinet officials who had used taxpayer money to take expensive private flights across the country, many times for leisure rather than for business.

With Price, the estimated amount spent went past the $1 million mark. On the same day, trump's budget director Mick Mulvaney also sent a memo out to executive department heads to remind them of the administration's policies on travel. The distribution of a memo is very much similar to the standard formalities in corporations that remind everyone of their procedures.

Being that the reports said those flights were approved by the administration, it's likely that those standards never really existed before recent events. In the case of both the HHS and the US Treasury Department, the Office of Inspector General for each had already been reviewing those incidents. However, Kelly's effort to "crackdown" on the wasteful use of taxpayer money for luxury by an administration that lacks moral standards, is questionable.

Trump's hypocrisy of using taxpayer money

With the memo, Mulvaney attempted to establish an ethics standard that most in government have traditionally already agreed to, to be responsible with the public's money. Reasons to think the administration is being hypocritical is because this entire time, the Trump administration has shown more interest in funneling taxpayer income into his pocket about blatant conflicts of interest.

For instance, with Trump's Secret Service protection, Mick Mulvaney was involved with approving more funding to the agency when they were financially overwhelmed earlier in the year protecting the Trump family. It was later learned throughout the year -- before the President's protection financially crippled the agency again -- that the Secret Service was using taxpayer money to pay Trump owned properties.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) tried to move on legislation that would block the Secret Service from spending money on Trump businesses but was blocked by Republican leaders. With Trump having handed his brand over to his children Don Jr. and Eric Trump, many have said that it didn't put enough distance between the President and his company. To be clear, the taxpayer money the Secret Service uses to pay for when they stay at a Trump brand location goes back to the Trump himself. In other words, he can apparently spend taxpayer money but his Cabinet officials can't.
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