Did you get your money’s worth from Congress ?

Did you get your money’s worth from Congress last week?


What you got............

Members of the House and Senate enjoyed their final week of their LEGALLY-MANDATED “August Recess.” (Sounds like they’re in France, right?) In 1971, Congress actually wrote their vacation into law. Senate Historian Don Ritchie explains members “wanted to be able to promise their families in January that they could have an August vacation.”

But recess doesn’t mean a break from politics. Sarah Binder, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution says there’s a “partisan incentive” to leaving town. According to Binder, “Recess means an opportunity to go home and for members to sell what the majority party has been doing or for the minority party to complain about what the majority party has been doing.”

What you paid
Last week, taxpayers spent roughly $107 million on Congress.

Salaries of Members of Congress and their allowances/week:

Speaker of the House: $223,500/52 = $4,299
House and Senate Majority and Minority Leaders: ($193,400/52) x 4 = $14,877
Other Representatives and Senators: ($174,000/52) x 530 = $1,773,462
Allowance for staff salaries and misc: ($1,500,000/52) x 535 = $15,432,692

Non-salary money allocated for Congress: $4.656 billion/52 = $89,538,462


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