Not sure what I’m reading here.
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Percentage of regulator budget paid for by the industry they are charged with regulating is the main point.
House members get another 1.2-1.8m each year to pay for their office. A reading of the rules states they cannot pay for personal expenses, but the do have 256k a year to pay for office expenses, 945k for salaries, a pretty good travel budget, and a housing allowance.
They also get generous pension and medical benefits, and don’t seem to have to actually be at work most of the time… probably better for us
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Thanks for that link. I found a different source that said $250,000 for travel and office expenses with no variance for distance from district to DC, which seemed bonkers. But your source says the travel is different and does vary by distance, which is much more logical.
I wonder if they changed it or if my source was wrong. All of the numbers on my source were a little lower, so probably from several years ago.
I didn’t see the housing allowance in the link.
I used to think that.
Then I got lassoed in to be one of the industry guys in the discussions that led to the NCOIL model law on credit scoring for P&C personal lines.
Much of my cynicism towards the sausage-making done by state legislatures has its origins from that experience.
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“The dollar equivalent of 2,500 square feet multiplied by the applicable General Services Administration (GSA) rental rate.”
I assumed that was referring to housing but maybe its office space in their district.
From the portion on travel:
Now, out of sheer morbid curiosity, I really want to know how they calculate this for Hawaii, and even Alaska. I’m guessing Attu Station, AK and somewhere on Ni’ihau, HI are furthest from DC, but you certainly can’t drive to either place. (That’s assuming we’re not counting uninhabited islands.). One of the Hawaiian districts will be a little closer as one of the districts is about 70% of Oahu and the other district is the remaining portion of Oahu plus the entire rest of the state.
Yeah, that’s not very clear at all.
On the one hand I’m pretty sure they get a housing allowance, but the “applicable GSA rental rate” makes it sound like it varies… suggesting in-district office space. The GSA rate for DC will vary over time though.
Leaning towards that being intended for DC housing. Maybe in-district office comes out of the $256K “office expenses”??? That seems like a lot.
I assumed they were all given a congressional office at the capitol, or one of the nearby buildings, without paying actual rent.
Anyway, they point is they get a lot of taxpayer money on top of their salary to spend. Im sure a big moving van takes all the expensive stuff home with them when they leave office.
Correct. They get offices in DC that they don’t pay for out of the allowance.
But they need a place to stay in DC. And they need an office in their district. At least I assume that’s considered necessary?
If they spent over $500 on it it’s considered an “asset” … but I don’t know what that means in terms of taking it with them when they’re done.
Yeah but it’s not really lining their pockets. They legitimately need a staff and a place to sleep and to travel between DC and their district.
I think the pocket-lining mostly happens other ways.
It might be difficult to line their pockets with the money, but they can spend a lot of money on having a really nice lifestyle without touching that 174k salary.
Eh, they still have to eat, buy clothes, pay for their primary residence… they’re touching the $174,000.
The second. That is in the section titled “Members Representational Allowance”:
The Member’s Representational Allowance (MRA) is intended for individual member offices’ expenditures and receipts during a single legislative year.
And
- The MRA may not pay for personal expenses.
My cynicism comes from 1) having served on a city council, and 2) pushing a bill at the state legislature to fix a law that was so clearly unconstitutional that when the committee I proposed it to asked their counsel, he said: “it is unconstitutional and you should fix it.” Then the proposed bill passed the state senate unanimously (by all those in attendance), was amended in the house as to when it would become effective if passed only if it passed both houses by 2/3rds majorities and was then passed by the house 1 vote short of a 2/3rds majority so the amendment had no effect, but since it had been amended had to go back to the senate for their acceptance of the amendment that had no effect on the bill and it was unanimously rejected in the senate by the same senators who had one or 2 weeks early unanimously approved it. Go figure. Then a couple years later they ran the exact same bill and it was passed unanimously in both houses.
I wouldn’t consider a Congress Critter’s temporary housing in DC a “personal expense”. It’s essentially a hotel room on a very long business trip.
So while you might be right that the particular item in question is meant to be for an office in-district, the “personal expense” restriction doesn’t add to your case.
Yes, and all that is a function of where they live as well.
But it seems like the moment they leave their home for DC, the have access to their MRA with more freedom to spend it than we would have traveling for our companies.