The High Cost of Representation

Every time I hear politicians talk about reducing government spending, the next word I hear is “entitlements”, Social Security and Medicare. Social Security is the only retirement many of our nation’s lower income citizens have and since people are living longer and healthier lives, politicians think that changing the age of eligibility to 70 is the right way to solve the problem. Raising the retirement age to 70 will cause many to have less than cat food to eat. The fact that people are living longer and healthier doesn‘t mean they will be able to keep a job or find another job if replaced by a younger person. There may be a few who have jobs past age 65 but I doubt if many of them are in the lower income bracket. This sounds more like a “from the bottom up” effort in finding places to cut back government spending.

I have been thinking more about a “from the top down” spending cut. We pay our congressmen and senators $174,000 each per year. The majority and minority leaders $193,400 and the speaker of the house, $223,500. That is just their salaries. They also have an allowance. In 2008, the most recent year I could find, they received allowances ranging from $1,299,292 to $1,637,766 for office space, secretaries and aides, and mail. Consider that we have 100 senators and 435 congressmen plus their expense accounts, we’re looking at roughly another $500 million. Then there’s those travel allowances. The congressional travel budget is somehow combined into a larger budget involving State Department and Military travel and is never made public. When a representative travels, he can pocket as much as $3,000 per trip in per diem for food and lodging due to an accounting system that doesn’t require itemization nor demand return of unused cash. That would allow a lawmaker to pocket quite a hefty sum of left-over cash. Is it any wonder that most of our elected leaders are millionaires.

But all this generosity did not start with this year's crop. Benefits payments for some 400 retired members of Congress, who receive an average benefit of $45,000 a year, cost taxpayers about $20 million annually, says the National Tax Payers Foundation. Future costs depend on the turnover rate: The more who leave before they reach the five-year vesting threshold, the lower the annual payouts are required. Over time, congressional pensions are expected to accumulate more modestly as fewer members stay on beyond six to 12 years, according to the NTUF.