Members Of Congress Profiting From Taxpayer-Funded “Per Diem” Travel Payments

Proof • August 12, 2009

The nation is trillions of dollars in debt. The current political leadership is adding trillions more. And meanwhile, members of Congress are lining their pockets with superfluous travel “per diem” funding courtesy of the taxpayers.

The total cost for congressional overseas travel is never made public because the price tag for State Department advance teams and military planes used by lawmakers are folded into much larger budgets. Members of Congress must only report the total per diem reimbursements they receive in cash for hotels, meals and local transport.
They don’t have to itemize expenses—a convenient arrangement since most costs are covered by the government or local hosts. Some trips subtract some hotel and meal costs from the per diems, others do not. “The policy is completely inconsistent,” one House member told me. Total per diem allowances (per person, including staff) can top $3,000 for a single trip. Unused funds are supposed to be given back to the government, but congressional records show that rarely happens. …
The House’s official handbook requires that lawmakers use regular U.S. airlines “whenever possible, unless such service is not reasonably available.” But congressional records show members routinely take military planes to London, Paris and other well-served locales. Members can fly for free with their spouses on military aircraft.

Keep working and paying your taxes, plebes. The political elite have a trip to the Bahamas planned and trips like that aren’t free!

Tags: Asshats, Domestic Issues, Politics

http://proof-proofpositive.blogspot.com/ proof_positive

Why didn’t you hypocrites complain about this during the Bush administration?

Maybe you should check out how sharply Congressional travel spending has increased in the last twelve months?
http://www.dartemis.net/blog/ sayanything-42

Most Ethical Congress EVAH!
Bat One

Maybe all that extra per diem money that Nancy and the Dems are stuffing in their pockets will make them feel a bit less deprived that they didn’t get those brand new luxury airplanes they wanted.
http://proof-proofpositive.blogspot.com/ proof_positive
Lioncourt

As usual, you don’t know what you are talking about. When they take military aircraft to London it is not as if they requisition a flight. They take a flight that is already going to London and there is space available. This are called “hops”. Taking a military hop saves money. I’ve done it myself when I was on active duty.

Also, per diems are given instead of itemized receipts because is less expensive. The administrative burden of having somebody go through all the receipts an audit the trips is more expensive than just giving a flat rate for where you are going.

If you want to argue that Congress members take too many trips, that is fair. But this mindless post should embarass you.
robert108

LC: They’re already paid much more than they deserve for the “work” they do, so a per diem is just obscene. They’re already being paid for doing nothing but buy our votes with our money. How greedy can they get?
http://sayanythingblog.com/readers/author/realitybasedbob/ realitybasedbob

Is this part of the Sarah Palin per diem program?
http://northerngleaner.blogspot.com/ Gene

PDS??

You need to take something for this Bob.
http://sayanythingblog.com/readers/author/realitybasedbob/ realitybasedbob

PDS??

I cut and paste, you decide.
ollie-B

Why didn’t you hypocrites complain about this during the Bush administration? Every administration has been “wasteful” in their spending of our tax money, in fashion. But you seem to be making a great effort to report every expense the Democrats incur. This is petty. It also shows why you lost. We have mature leadership. Not boys playing with toys.
robert108

ollie: Like most lefties, you don’t respond to actual facts, but to your programmed stereotypes. When I mention “greedy govt”, I don’t state any political party, do I?
You have just demonstrated that you are a mindless ideologue.
HG

ollie, obviously your hearing is selective. Conservatives have been complaining about republican spending for years now.
Mark

As usual, you don’t know what you are talking about. When they take military aircraft to London it is not as if they requisition a flight. They take a flight that is already going to London and there is space available. This are called “hops”. Taking a military hop saves money. I’ve done it myself when I was on active duty.

I too have been on “hops” I don’t think any member of congress would stoop that low. I’ve never seen any.
Bodhi

Lioncourt, you are full of shit.

I used to dispatch aircraft for Congressional Personnel. They (members of Congress) never fly on “as available” seating. We either created new flights, or added and changed to accommodate their requests.
2Hotel9

Poor little http://html/ too stupid to think for itself, so it just cut&pastes; the lies of others. Lyingcourt? Unless http://html/ is your suckpuppet you should demand it stop stealing your lies and come up with some of its own.

As for Congressional abuse of the travel per diem system, it has been going on for decades, just sharply increased since the beginning of the 2008 Presidential election campaigns. Lots of Congress members began increasing their “official” travel while campaigning for Barri and Billary.
http://sayanythingblog.com robport

Lioncourt, what part of “they aren’t giving back the unspent per diems” do you not understand.

Honestly, there are times when I think that Nancy Pelosi could punch a baby and you’d be on here trying to explain to us about how the infant deserved it.

SayAnythingBlog.com

Members Of Congress Profiting From Taxpayer-Funded “Per Diem” Travel Payments

Create a SAB Readerblog

Recent Comments