1. AFTER THEY LEAVE OFFICE, former Speakers of the House get the following paid for by the government: a furnished office, an office expense account, free mail and printing priviledges, an adminstrative assistant and two secretaries and special entitlements for 5 years. (2 USC 31 - Sec. 31b-1, 2, 4, 5 & 7)
2. Members of Congress receive a base salary of $174,000 (b), office expense accounts, personal expense accounts BUT if they have additional responsiblity as committee chairs, Speaker of the House, President Pro Tempore of the Senate, etc., they have ADDITIONAL expense accounts associated with these appointments. (2 USC 32 - Sec. 32, 32a and 32b)
3. Family members can be given a gift when a Congressional Representative dies: "...death gratuity payment made out of the applicable accounts of the House of Representatives or the contingent fund of the Senate shall be held to have been a gift." (2 USC 38 - Sec. 38b)
4. The Senate's Select Committee on Ethics received 84 alleged violations in 2010, none of which received letters of admonition or disciplinary sanction. (c) (2 USC 31 - Sec. 31-2) These are usually money related...I wonder how loudly those 84 are screaming about budget reductions!
Some other tidbits before I go to bed:
1. There is a budget of $2,907,000 to provide new members a temporary staff to set up their offices in Washington... (e)
2. Did you know the house of representatives has TWO Cloakrooms, one for the majority leaders and one for the minority leaders? They can't get along enough to check their coats?! Anyway...The cloakroom personnel budget is $497,000 EACH! I think I'll apply! (e)
3, The House has a $30,089,000 for official representation and receptions. Come on...It's party time! If you guys want to get together, pay for it out of your pockets like the rest of us do. There are people living with their children on the sides of roads, in tents and cars! (e)
4. Look at this section of the Senate's budget, "Government contributions for health, retirement, Social[$276,703,000] $286,316,000, including employee tuition assistance benefit payments, 3,500,000, if authorized, and employee child care benefit payments, $1,000,000, if authorized..." (e) EVERY SENATOR IS A MILLIONAIRE. THEY CAN"T AFFORD TO PAY TUITION AND CHILD CARE!? AND WHY SHOULD WE HAVE TO CONTRIBUTE TO THEIR HEALTH, RETIREMENT, SOCIAL SECURITY AND OTHER BENEFIT PAYMENTS?!
5. All through the budget these words appear, "...to remain available until expended..." Some gain comfort with this phrase...once it's gone, it's gone type situation. BUT...Everyone needs to look at the numbers preceding that statement. They are mind boggling!
The whole point to my rantings over the Congressional budget is the obscene nature of it. While our elected officials slice programs affording the poorest meer breadcrumbs, they have not looked to drasticly cutting the fat out of Washington. There are so many ways for them to pull money from every direction, to cover just about anything they want to do for themselves, their staff, their families...Audacity it too light a term.
I love this country and believe in the Constitution's power to work for everyone, but the lower 80 do not have the reins and the ones who do are cutting our ration of hay while they reap the crops we slave to produce...
a: http://vlex.com/source/us-code-congress-1001/toc/03
b: http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/uscongress/a/congresspay.htm
c: http://ethics.senate.gov/downloads/pdffiles/2010_Annual_Report.pdf
d: http://www.aoc.gov/cc/cobs/rhob.cfm
e: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy11/pdf/appendix/leg.pdf
Security, and other applicable employee benefits,
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