Taxpayers footing bill for Congress' (luxury) car leases

[UpInArms]

http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/news/local/14077359.htm

WASHINGTON - Taxpayers paid more than $1 million last year for members of Congress to lease vehicles, including dozens of gas-guzzling SUVs and expensive luxury cars.

Some members of Congress use their office budgets to lease Lexuses, Lincolns, Cadillacs, an Infiniti, even a BMW 530i, which one auto critic called "one of the world's best sport luxury sedans." The lease prices of some cars topped $1,000 a month.

A few leased two cars on the taxpayers' dime; two lawmakers leased three.

Leasing cars is a little-known perk used by 136 members of the 435-member House of Representatives in 2005. The Senate doesn't allow its members to lease cars with their office budgets. Last year, the House leases cost at least $1.05 million. Taxpayers also paid for hundreds of thousands of dollars more in gas and insurance.

...more...

[formercia]

1. A standard business deduction

They are in Congress to make money, aren't they? (sarcasm)

[saigon68]

11. They are Pigs

no wait ------ Pigs are more noble than that.

[teryang]

2. Taxpayers footing bill for trillion dollar military defeat n/t

[pdurod1]

3. It's time for public servants to start acting like

public servants. I think people are starting to get tired of this crap. We can start with rolling back the salaries to minimum wage levels. And they can pay for their own meals like the rest of us do. I think about this every time I look at my paystub. It's gettin old.

[northzax]

5. minimum wage levels?

oh come on. you know, as a congressman, you have to maintain two residences, by law? you need to have a residence in your district, as well as one where you work, and DC is not a cheap town to live in. Yes, some live very well, others share apartments with other members in DC while supporting families at home.

[whathappened]

7. so all these perks

they have given themselfs are just fine with you , bs , let them live the poor life if they want be the big shot in dc , i have no use for these blood sucking parasites we have watching the home land for us , there is but a few who deserve any money for there services

[northzax]

9. let's make them as poor as possible

that way they'll take every piece of graft they can possibly get!

[earth mom]

4. This is outrageous!

It's not just the Bush cabal! The jerks elected to office are ripping us all off every way they can too! :mad:

[politicat]

6. It's time to build dorms for Congress critters.

We build 'em dorms - 2 bedrooms, a bathroom and a living room, so the family can visit. Kids can sleep in sleeping bags on the floor the way they do at Grannie's house. Communal kitchen. We feed 'em on dorm food - Marriott level 3 (which basically works out to $3.00 per day per person for breakfast and lunch each, and $5 per day per person for dinner and $2 for a snack). We pay for busses to run back and forth between the offices, the Capitol building, and the dorms. The busses DON'T run between 9 a.m. and 8 p.m. - they're expected to be at work. They can have lunch in the Congressional cafeteria or brown bag it or not have any at all. But lunch with the lobbyists has got to go. Let them work 4 10 or 12 hour days - I want them at home for three day weekends as often as possible to be meeting with their constituents and having a real life.

They can have one car, worth less than $20,000, and it must be paid for in full prior to taking office. It cannot be parked at the Capitol, but can be parked at the dorms.

Everyone gets a fixed number of staffers (take the median number) and those staffers are federal employees, not employed by the Congress critter. They also get a federally employed accountant who comes from the GAO and is not part of their "staff" so much as a watchdog. Every financial transaction needs to go through the GAO accountant's hands, and all the money they raise ends up in a pool that is divided equally among the 535 of them by head count in their districts. (It would still be cheaper than how we're paying staffers now, and if there's no incentive to raise money, then they won't take money from lobbyists.)

Each Congress critter gets 26 round trip plane or train vouchers per year to their home districts, If they don't use them all, they have to pay the equivalent cash value out of their own pockets (we need to encourage them to spend time at home, after all.)

And their salary is the same as the annual median income for a family of four in their own district.

That's how we clean up the money issues in Congress.

[northzax]

10. would you take that job?

would they get a federal car in their home districts as well? this sounds like a brilliant recipie for an imperial presidency, weaken congress as much as possible.

look, I agree that there are bad congressfolk, but you can tell that, frankly, there aren't that many taking advantage of these 'perks' this particular item was listed as costing $1.05 million last year. that means an average annual cost, per congresscritter, of a whopping $2415.79. and since only 126 took advantage of it, that's an average of $7720.59 per Rep. not that much money, in the grand scheme of things.

I would go the other way. Pay them a million bucks a year. every transaction they engage in is public record, posted on their website for their consitutents to see. I want to know who they are talking to, and who they are lunching with. No gifts, at all. remove the incentive for graft, and most of it will go away.

[politicat]

12. Yes, actually.

I also believe that no one should be allowed out of jury duty (though rejection is allowed), that sitting on town, county and state boards should be by lottery without a way out (and that employers should make allowances for that duty), and that it is a civic duty to serve your community. It's the way we pay dues to live in the society. I also, cautiously, support a national service requirement for people aged 18 to 21. (And I did serve; I was an unpaid or nearly unpaid psychotherapist for a community mental health service for three years.)

Getting the money out of congress would also get the money out of the presidency, and if there's no money (and the president's job is put under the same limitations as congressional jobs) then there's no incentive for corporations and lobbying groups to put pressure on elected officials.

In one area we agree: their every financial move needs to be public record. I'd like their calendars to be, as well, but that could reasonably be considered a security issue if published in advance.

[northzax]

14. hm, I don't want revolving, lottery style representation

although it sounds appealing, I'd rather have the chance to select qualified people who want the job, they're really more likely to do a better job. As for jury duty, yes, everyone should spend the day waiting to be called, with people being let off juries themselves on only very few exceptions (like serious illness or the like)

And I oppose mandatory national service on civil liberties grounds, mainly the same reason I oppose mandatory service in government or the military (except in cases of true national emergency) it's just one more thing that you are required to do. And, for the record, I turned down a lucrative consulting gig to spend two years in Americorps.

calendars of representatives and their staffs can be published after the fact. I don't care about that as much as I want to know who people are talking to, not just the reps, but their staff.

[politicat]

15. We do civil liberties exceptions now...

I guess I'd just rather have the default set to "Service" rather than "Don't Serve" (like setting the default for organ donation to Donate, rather than don't donate). There are lots of places where the same three people get elected to City Council year after year because no one else wants the job. Elections of that sort aren't elections - they're a ramrod.

This country is only as good as we make it. I really don't think most people realize that we own the place, rather than the power brokers, the consultants, the Friends of Imported Oil, and the Society for the Advancement of Corporate Entities. I'm not saying that national service or taxation makes us value our ownership more, but what we're doing isn't working. The ownership society has turned into the Mortgaged unto Judgment Day society and the Can't Buy a Piece of the Society. Maybe we have to work for our places in the world to really value them, and when the world we live in doesn't value the people we are and the places we occupy, we don't see a point in caring about the world around us. I want a method that levels the playing field, so that every child has a solid place from which to launch herself and a place from which to see a world she didn't see growing up. Perspective and a means to progress.

[NYC]

8. Cheney says people live paycheck to paycheck, don't save enough.

That would be the same Cheney who has an ambulance and medical team follow him around at taxpayer expense.

I wonder why taxpayers don't save enough.

[Texacrat]

13. Rangel? Meeks?

Yikes