Pelosi Spends $16,000 On Flowers For Her Office
That would be $16,000 of our tax dollars. On flowers.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has spent $16,000 on flowers since taking office, one reason why she spent 63 percent more in her high-profile inaugural year than her low-key predecessor did last year.
Pelosi (D-Calif.) spent a little more than $3 million in the first nine months of 2007, records show, compared to the $1.8 million Rep. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) spent during the same period in 2006.
The excuse from Pelosi’s spokesperson is just plain laughable:
“When Speaker Pelosi took the gavel, it was an historic moment. In the days since, the Speaker has hosted leaders from across the country and around the world — opening the People’s House to the people and discussing the work of the 110th Congress,” Pelosi spokesman Nadeam Elshami said in response to e-mailed questions.
It was a “historic moment,” so naturally the taxpayers should foot the bill for $16,000 in flowers.
I know that it’s fair for members of Congress to get some taxpayer funding for the necessary functions of their office. Stuff like furniture and such. But flowers? Pelosi and her husband are worth millions. They should buy their own flowers.
I’d look to the Republicans to beat the Democrats up on this sort of idiotic extravagance, but their hands aren’t exactly clean in this either:
Republicans are spending more as well. House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) has increased spending 23 percent above what Pelosi spent when she held the same job. That would be 16 percent if some of Hastert’s closing-out costs were deducted.
When are the Republicans going to learn? Rhetoric about the Democrats being a bunch of spend-happy commissars always looking to expand the size of government doesn’t work if you yourself are only marginally less spend-happy.
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