(Dmytro “Henry” Aleksandrov, Headline USA) Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and other officials from the Biden administration decided they had better things to do than attending meetings over the supply chain crisis that rocked consumers, businesses and the economy.
A public records request from the Functional Government Institute revealed that, among other people, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack never attended meetings of the task force –created two years ago by the White House — that he co-chaired to solve the supply chain problem, according to the Daily Wire.
Five months after the creation of the task force, the Agriculture Department only produced 19 pages of records related to the entity and a federal lawsuit from the Functional Government Institute. Out of those 19 pages, 14 of them were copies of public statements about the initiative. None of the records showed that Vilsack or his deputies bothered to attend any meetings.
“As the administration rightly recognized in creating the Task Force, supply chain issues threaten the economic and national security of the country,” Functional Government Institute spokesman Peter McGinnis stated in a press release.
“Secretary Vilsack’s failure to convene a single meeting with his fellow leaders, while dedicating federal resources to investigate and blame the private sector, shows that the Task Force was little more than a cynical attempt to signal engagement on supply chain disruptions while, in fact, doing little or nothing.”
Buttigieg and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo were also co-chairs of the task force, a June 2021 statement from the White House said, adding that the officials would concentrate on bottlenecked products like construction materials, semiconductors and food supplies. In another press release, Vilsack said that he was eager to “mobilize a whole-of-government effort to address the short-term supply challenges our country faces as it recovers.”
Buttigieg went absent from duty for two months, when he took the so-called “paternity leave,” during which he never participated in any meetings. Not so long ago, instead of solving the Southwest scandal and preventing a possible nationwide rail strike, Buttigieg decided that it would be a good idea to spend his time in Portugal.
