Congress Costs How Much Again??
This morning, the head of the Democratic National Committee and member of Congress Debbie Wasserman-Schultz tweeted this picture.
I know what she’s trying to get across. The Republicans, who preach fiscal sanity, continue to waste our money on a partisan political crusade against Obamacare and they ought to give it up because it’s here to stay, everyone loves it, and if it goes away an entire magical island full of unicorns and talking puppies will explode and sink beneath the waves never to be seen again.
Okay. Fine. That’s the standard Democratic talking point about Obamacare. I’ll write more about that in a post later. For now, I want to focus on just one thing, the thing that grabbed my attention when I first saw this.
One day of Congress costs over 30 million dollars? Thirty million??
Folks, that number can not be right, can it? The Speaker of the House makes less than $250,000 a year. If every member of Congress made that much and worked the same year-round schedule you or I do, their daily salary would barely break a half million dollars. Operational costs can’t be that high either, even if you assume the Capitol is an old building and requires more daily routine maintenance than a new building. Peg that number at half-million a day, which would include the salaries of the maintenance staff. So that gets you to a million dollars.
Now, toss in a staff for each member of Congress of….what? Twenty? Fifty? Assume a way overblown salary of $100,000 a head for a staff of fifty per member of congress and that cranks you all the way up to, I believe $11 million. So, with salaries and maintenance you’re looking at $12 million, which includes a huge pad for miscellaneous costs. Where is the other $18 million? Are there that many ancillary offices that run every single day Congress is in session?
Before I answer that, let me hit you with the the truly mind-blowing number, extend that to a full session. Take the 2011 session, during which the House met for 175 days. The total freight, at $30 million a day, is five billion two hundred fifty million dollars — $5,250,000,000.
As it happens, that’s more than Congress’ proposed budget, by roughly a billion dollars. That, of course, assumes that Congress passes a budget this year. The Democrats have been a bit hesitant to do that the past few years. I don’t know where Ms. Wasserman-Schultz got her number, but it is clearly too large, and I’m not talking about its accuracy. Congress is out of control, has been out of control, and will continue to be out of control until we get some people in there whose first and strongest instinct is start tearing out huge chunks of the budget and returning them to us, where they belong.
Think about those numbers. Thirty million dollars a day, 5.25 billion dollars a year. That, folks, is insane. Imagine what even an average small business owner could have done with that much money. Imagine how many jobs and how much wealth that entrepreneur could have created. Some of that money might have gone to charity, where it could have fed a child or built a house or saved a woman from brutal abuse. Instead, it went to Washington where it fueled the machine that raises our taxes, restricts our freedom, ignores our wishes, insults our intelligence, and treats us as serfs.
I don’t really have a button to put on this post except to say that number, whether it is the $5.25 billion that Wasserman-Schultz says it is or the smaller $4 billion and change that will likely pass the House this year, is too flipping big. Congress should not cost us billions. We have to fix that.
Related posts:
- Congress: Money for Pork but Not So Much for Science (UPDATE: Rover Saves, but Not By Congress)
- More Math for Debbie Wasserman-Schultz. This Time, It's Jobs.
- Congress Votes to Spend More of Your Money on Their Perks and Treats
- The Post Where I Break Out Some Math on Debbie Wasserman-Schultz
Category: Our New Democratic Overlords, The Republican Minority
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Related posts:
- Congress: Money for Pork but Not So Much for Science (UPDATE: Rover Saves, but Not By Congress)
- More Math for Debbie Wasserman-Schultz. This Time, It's Jobs.
- Congress Votes to Spend More of Your Money on Their Perks and Treats
- The Post Where I Break Out Some Math on Debbie Wasserman-Schultz
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Yeah, I tried and tried, but could not come anywhere near $30M per day … more like $1M per day. I don’t mind Ms Wasserman trying to emphasize the futility of these repealer votes, since they’ll never get past the Senate or the President, but it makes her point disappear in the inaccuracy.
If you take the 4 billion budget figure and divide it by the 127 Congress was in session in 2010, you get a much different figure.. I’m not saying that’s what happened, but DWS may have looked at 2010 days in session. Also , we don’t know from when this graphic originated.. If it originated in 2011 based on 2010 figures, you get the 30 mil plus number.
I agree with Ron – bet if you take the hourly and extrapolate for an entire year, you might get close to the Wasserman number – but the point is well taken – with the GOP throwing any numbers out there that it wants to, the DEMS should take the high ground and try to be honest with the numbers – or it just might be that facts do not really matter anymore. Like TV shows – shock value whether fact or fiction. Thanks! Keeping people honest is more than a full time job.
Yes, I agree it’s way too much, monetarily, emotionally, every other way. The whole of Government needs to be held accountable for their actions , they also need to be voted out of office, an those who replace them need to reminded without any qualms about it what so ever that they were put there by us to serve us their country, not for themselves to take advantage of people an be served! An they need to be reminded they can be taken out of office by tha same people who put them there if they are not willing to serve an do right by their country an it’s people. If I were President every an I mean every Government official would be required to take a pay cut, includeing my own self the President. AN , that Jet The Presidents use, would be used for strictly official Government related business an nothing else, an I mean nothing else. I would consider all things else to be personal, an they would be treated as such. A vacation home to see family, I’m in my own car, or a public plane, going shopping in PARIS, doubt I’d do that for one, but if I did, no white house jet, just a regular plane, boat train, or what ever anyone else in this country is expected to use.
I’m planning my race for office now.
I was a hard working nurse for many years, I’m retired now only an strictly because I’ve become disabled an can no longer work. I’ve been dirt poor, raised two children pretty much mostly by myself, one child my son is developementally disabled, my daughter is normal.
I’ve done some things in my past when I was very young that I’m not at all proud of. But I have nothing I’d ever try to hide. We have all done things wring in this life, an if we say we never have, or would never even think of it we lie. I do not try to lie or cover up anything I’ll be truthful, an you can either like or hate me your choice. But , just think about this I’d rather have someone in office who is truthful even to the point of admitting wrongs , than someone who always tries to lie about everything an cover up everything.
I have nothing to hide, an I am human, but I’m truthful an honest, an I love an care for my country an it’s people. An it’s time for we the people to take back our country.
thank you Dixie Hacker Hurley.
[...] Google on What it Costs to Run Congress and came up with: The Impolitic: The real cost of Congress Congress Costs How Much Again?? : The Sundries Shack A truly frightening site @ http://library.clerk.house.gov/refer…104_Salary.pdf What CONGRESS [...]
Well I do not believe that number is all that far off. You have to factor in the amount of support staff to even open the doors of both houses, which is most likely where the figure comes from. What is ticking me off is the Special Order speeches at night lately. Last night it was the Ohio Delegation heaping on the praises, and platitudes of the departing Ohio reps, tonight it was the California Delegation. I am tired of hearing these people calling them great patriots as if they are serving the nation, or for a fact even the people that elected them. More to the point it costs money to keep the chambers open for the same demagoguery you hear on the floor during the day. And do not even get me started on dedicating public building or days. Either way the two parties are destroying we as a nation, through their irresponsibility in spending. This is what happens when you have two parties in power for so long, they become a tyranny.