Senator Mike Rounds leads the Senate in spending taxpayer dollars on travel, says a new report in Axios:
Rounds has always raised eyebrows with his predilection for flying. But here he is spending far more than his neighbor and Majority Leader John Thune, who spent only $70,000 on charter flights compared to Rounds’s $625,000.
The independent who’d like to take Rounds’s job, Brian Bengs, wonders why Rounds doesn’t come talk in front of all the people paying for those frequent flights:
“Mike Rounds apparently thinks ‘fiscal responsibility’ means spending someone else’s money,” said Independent Senate candidate Brian Bengs, a 26-year veteran who advised the Air Force on military ethics. “While South Dakotans are struggling to pay for groceries, gas, health care, and everything else, Mike Rounds is leading the entire United States Senate in taxpayer-funded private jet spending. And he’s not just a little ahead — he’s hundreds of thousands of dollars ahead. At the same time, he’s refusing to talk to his constituents at even a single town hall meeting and hiding from every Senate debate this year.”
Rounds’ office defended the spending by saying, “Anyone who lives in rural South Dakota knows how challenging air travel can be.” But Bengs said that explanation does not justify the scale of Rounds’ spending.
“Yeah, Mike, rural South Dakotans know air travel can be difficult,” Bengs said. “What they also know is that they don’t have $625,000 of taxpayer money available to charter private planes.”
…“Mike Rounds won’t debate me. He won’t hold public town halls. Instead, South Dakotans get stage management and photo ops,” Bengs said. “Now we learn that he’s apparently spending hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to fly over South Dakota. I guess that’s one way to avoid running into the people who pay your salary” [Brian Bengs for U.S. Senate, campaign press release, 2026.09.28].
Maybe voters need to bring Mike Rounds back down to earth.