It did, however, produce plenty of just criticism. The trip was called a junket, a vacation, a holiday. The participants were dubbed globetrotters and jet-setters. And rightly so. The trip had all the trappings.
The delegation visited the Great Wall and the Forbidden City. It toured Chinese universities, schools and businesses. Some lawmakers even paid to take their spouses along, undermining the claim that the trip was all work and no play.
In just eight days, our self-appointed ambassadors to Asia burned through $36,000 in tax receipts. And the legislators had so much fun that they're working with the Utah International Trade Commission so they can duplicate the work of the Governor's Office of Economic Development and make their own overseas excursions more frequent affairs.
The trade commission, an 11-member board composed primarily of legislators appointed by legislators, wants to make international diplomacy part of the job description for state lawmakers. At its meeting Tuesday, the commission began laying plans to request funds to train these aspiring diplomats in foreign customs and protocol, to establish a fund to buy gifts for foreign dignitaries, and to appropriate money for annual trade missions.
Yup, hard to believe, we know, but that's what they did. If these expenses-paid excursions are approved, we can only imagine what comes next. Time-share condominiums in Hong Kong? A private jet for ease of travel? Too harsh? Then how about bargain tours on the taxpayer?
The Legislature needs to ground these high-flying masqueraders and take every dollar that would have been spent on "training" and travel-to-who-knows-where and give it to the state Office of Economic Development with instructions to expand actual foreign trade efforts.
We didn't elect our lawmakers to go gallivanting across the globe on trade missions. That's an executive, not a legislative, function. If a few legislators want to tag along on official state visits and lend their support, fine, but why should we subsidize them to reinvent the wheel?
