First was the outcry against the Cordoba House – better known as the Ground Zero mosque.  The Islamic community center is the brainchild of Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the founder, CEO, and executive director of the Cordoba Initiative.  Its stated purpose is to build a bridge between the Muslim world and the West.

Second was the outcry against the imam’s trip to the Middle East because it will be funded by the U.S. State Department.  The Associated Press has reported that the imam’s two-week trip will cost taxpayers $16,000.  The stated expenses include a “$200-per-day honorarium and the standard U.S. government per diem for expenses in each city.”  According to the State Department website, as of August 1, 2010 the maximum per diem rate for travel in Bahrain is $396; in Qatar it is $341; and in the UAE it is $496 – an average per diem of $411.  Combined with the honorarium, that is approximately $8,500 for the two weeks in the Middle East, meaning the remaining $7,500 is for air travel.  A look at Expedia.com showed that there were only two non-stop flights from JFK Airport to Dubai on August 19, Feisal Abdul Rauf’s day of departure.  Both flights are on Emirates Airline, and both cost $1,318 for coach.

A couple first-class tickets aside, the State Department’s budget is as strange as it is unsettling.  Does he really need such fine lodging and travel expenses at the cost of taxpayers? The following is based on fiscal data available as of August 19, 2010:

According to the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis, government receipts totaled $4.108 trillion in 2008.  That total dropped in 2009 to $3.752 trillion – a decrease of 8.7%.  Between 2008 and 2009, government expenditures rose from $5.020 trillion to $5.345 trillion – an increase of 6.5%.  Fiscal data for 2010 is not yet available.

The State Department’s budget is disproportionately large.  On the first page of the Department of State Agency Financial Report for Fiscal Year 2009 is the table of finances.  The department’s total budgetary resources surged from $38.825 billion to $50.138 billion between 2008 and 2009.  Within one year of the economy going into a tailspin, the State Department’s budget increased a colossal 29%.

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf’s $16,000 trip is peanuts, but it is part of a larger, Brobdingnagian problem that has somehow gone unnoticed by the media.  That the State Department requested and received over $11 billion is as inexplicable as it is inexcusable.  Someone, starting with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, needs to be held accountable – and fast.

research and article by Colin Fuess