Tips on how Congressional offices can cut costs
Michele Bachmann election night 2006. AP/Star Tribune, Carlos Gonzalez
There probably is no more ominous sign of end times than when the Post-Dispatch editorial page agrees with a position announced by U.S. Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas.
Politico, the inside-the-beltway political news site, reported last week that members of the U.S. House of Representatives allowed their budgets for running their congressional offices to rise a handsome 7 percent between 2008 and 2009. No layoffs or unpaid furloughs for them.
The yearly allotments — called the Member Representational Allowances, or MRAs — differ district to district. Virtually all range between $1.4 million and $1.6 million a year. The money pays for staff, travel expenses and the like.
Mr. Sessions — a Dallas lawmaker best known for outlandishly conservative views, connections to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff and an admirable devotion to the Boy Scouts of America — favors a freeze.
“Americans are tightening their fiscal belts” and “Congress should do the same — including . . .office account spending levels,” he told Politico through a spokesperson.
Right you are, Pete. Though we’re saddened that your office said you had no plans to reduce your own office expenses.
Each office received a bump of about $100,000 this year, about 15 cents per constituent. It shouldn’t be too tough for lawmakers to forgo the increase. Here are some suggestions:
• Double up. Members are permitted to have “shared employees.” Think of the efficiencies that would be gained if only one House employee was required to laugh at members’ jokes.
• Use public transit. Vast sections of the House Manual, a sort of rule book for lawmakers, are devoted to parking spaces and rental vehicles. Members could save taxpayers a bundle by using public transit: D.C.’s Metro system even offers them a discount.
• Save postage. Don’t mail out those newsletters. Nobody believes them, anyway.
• Shut up. U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., one of the House’s biggest spenders in the first quarter, spends a lot of time making stupid statements on TV, such as “I find it interesting that it was back in the 1970s that the swine flu broke out then under Democrat President Jimmy Carter. And I’m not blaming this on President Obama, I just think it is an interesting coincidence.”
Actually swine flu broke out under President Gerald Ford, a Republican. Think of the time her staff spends apologizing.
But if they are reducing staff, who will write & read the bills that congressmen sign into law? Legislatures can’t be bothered with that task, don’t you know.
Congress should be in session only half the current time and members should have their salaries/budgets cut in half as a result. Better yet, send ‘em all home and replace them with a troop of trained seals. Their yapping wouldn’t be near as irritating, and their satisfied with a couple dried fish.
Gerald Walpin…
Anything on Gerald Walpin ??
Teeny weenie bit of something on Gerald Walpin ??
No?
Okay… please resume your rip & read of Think Progress.
Pass it along as original thought.
Interesting…
Trillions of debt as far as the eye can see and the P-D Editors worry about a piddling amount from congressional offices.
You can’t make this stuff up.
With that lead sentence, and the lame attempt at a tongue-in-cheek premise, can only conclude the rest of the piece is just as bogus.
I guess we’ll have to wait for the apologies from Obama’s crew about the “57 states” remark…
Or the explanation on the $97,000.00 “date night” for “Obamalot”…
Overall, poorly conceived and trite in it’s scope, usual bilge from usual source.
And yet only Republican Congresspeople are mentioned. Perhaps, in the interest of full disclosure, the P-D should amend the part about “not belonging to any party”.
Well, here’s a bet…I bet $1,000 to the first taker’s $100 that the P-D will endorse Barack Obama for the 2012 Presidential election. And I will bet another $1,000 to the first taker $100 that the P-D will endorse the Democratic candidate over the Republican candidate for the 2016 election, regardless of who’s running or what his/her position is on any of the issues.
If the P-D editorial board had any pride or sense of journalistic integrity, they would be deeply offended that they’re being portrayed as in the pocket of the left. But we’ll see which editor takes my bet first.
So the Democratically controlled Congress increases its own budget, the Post disagrees, but it still becomes an opportunity to call a Republican “stupid.” The New York Times attacks Republicans every chance they get too, but at least they don’t have to stoop to gutter language to do it.
Wow - nice work in for another Jack Abramoff reference. Funny how no Democrats ever do anything stupid, isn’t it? Oh wait a minute, I am still five year later waiting for the editorial on Sandy (scissorshands) Berger who stole documents out of the National Archive prior to the 9-11 hearings.
Never understood how the PD rationalized not commenting on that. Oh, and whatever you do, don’t investigate the Walpin firing the way you obsessed over the U. S. Attorneys firings who serve at the pleasure of the POTUS unlike IG’s who serve the people as watchdogs. What hypocrisy.
The real shame is the staff they pay don’t bother to read the bills they vote on. It’s not just the giant bills slammed through Congress in 14 hours like the Stimulus - it’s just about everything they vote on. I called McCaskill’s office prior to the stimulus, and some kid laughed that the bill was 600 pages long (this wasn’t even the final version).
As the average voter begins to find this out, the rage grows. Our legislators care so little about what they’re doing they can’t even be bothered to direct paid staff to read the legislation they vote on.
We’re starting to notice. The dirty little secret needs to come out. Your legislators think so little of you they can’t be bothered to read what they put into law.
$787 billion? Who needs to read that? $2 trillion health care fundamentally changing our health care system? Who can be bothered?
I’d be fine with an $100,000 increase in expenses per office if someone was actually hired to read and report on what was voted on.
Whatever happened to that promise by Obama to post bills for the public to see five days before they were voted on? Now that Democrats are in charge, is the need for transparency gone?
I was kind of hoping they would list the expenditures of our representatives.
Why not ditch the Post gig and go directyly to Kos?
Whether Democrat or Republican; liberal or conservative; honest or corrupt; micromanaging the lives of a third of a billion people is expensive and time consuming. That explains why public sector employment is booming while the private sector is contracting and suffocating.
Cost isn’t important as long as it is for the common good, comrades.