Amendment to Cut 'Pothole Pete' Buttigieg's Salary to $1 Passes the House
An amendment to slash Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s salary to $1 passed the House Tuesday.
The cut, which is allowed under a bit of House procedure known as the Holman rule, was adopted by voice vote to become an amendment to the 2024 Transportation and Housing and Urban Development spending bill, according to The Hill.
The full bill has not yet been approved.
For the amendment to be included in the final budget, the Democrat-controlled Senate would need to approve it.
Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who introduced the amendment, explained her reasons in a video posted to X. In her post, she said, incorrectly, that the amendment would fire Buttigieg.
“Pete Buttigieg has failed to serve the American people as the Secretary of Transportation,” Greene said in her floor remarks.
Greene said Buttigieg had his priorities wrong.
“He has been busy calling roads racist and forcing equity action plans and implementing climate change initiatives rather than strengthening our nation’s transportation and infrastructure systems and responding to emergencies like the train derailment in East Palestine,” she said, referring to an Ohio train wreck earlier in the year that let loose toxic substances.
🚨 BREAKING: I’m proud to announce my amendment to FIRE Pete Buttigieg just PASSED the House.
Pothole Pete staged fake bike rides to the White House and used private planes funded by taxpayers to receive awards for the way certain people have sex.
American taxpayers should not… pic.twitter.com/9fq9XrXLV2
— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) November 7, 2023
“He stated there is racism physically built into some of our highways. Every transportation decision is inherently, in many ways, a decision about equity,” she said.
“I would argue people driving on dirt roads every single day in rural America may feel that way. But our Secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttigieg, doesn’t care about Americans in rural America, he’s more interested in declaring that roads are built on skin color and racism,” she said.
Greene also cited an instance in which Buttigieg was caught unloading a bicycle from an SUV before riding it, as if he rode to work.
“He has also intentionally tried to deceive the American people, as shown when a video surfaced of him faking a bike ride to a White House Cabinet meeting,” she said.
“What a hypocrite! What a liar! Deserving a taxpayer-funded paycheck is about job performance, not about personalities or identity politics,” she said.
At the time, the DOT and Buttigieg said he was not being deceptive and that he did bike the trip to work occasionally, according to the Washington Examiner.
Greene said Buttigieg’s transportation experience was mostly negative.
“And let’s all recall that Pete Buttigieg was formerly a mayor and was well known as ‘Pothole Pete’ for not repairing all the potholes in the roads in the town that he served,” she said.
“While Secretary Buttigieg was taking taxpayer-funded carbon-emitting private jets to receive LGBTQ awards, he failed to serve the Americans in East Palestine, who were devastated by the train derailment and chemical spill earlier this year,” she said.
Americans for Public Trust Executive Director Caitlin Sutherland said Buttigieg has abused his position, according to Fox News.
“Secretary Buttigieg continues to blow off the American people, who simply want to know the true cost of his taxpayer-funded private jet trips,” she said, noting the costs of those trips has not been released.
“Buttigieg looks to be politicizing his role and making it clear that he believes he’s above accountability and transparency, a dismissive attitude that seems to be endemic throughout the Biden administration,” Sutherland said.
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