Does The U.S. Congress Actually Work?

In the past four and a half years, members of Congress have taken nearly 5,000 trips. The cost of these trips was more than $14 million. And whose paying for it? Corporations and outside interest groups. The abuse of this system and the ethical implications of this are staggering.

This was an impressive investigation by Marketplace, American RadioWorks, and a team of graduate students from Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism, who cataloged every privately sponsored trip taken by members of the House or Senate since 2000. You can find out how much your representative and senators are travelling on corporate America's dime, where they're going, etc... . Some interesting things that come from the study:

The top eight spenders and nine of the top 10 are Democrats with John Breaux from Louisiana leading the way with $158,311.92 and 208 days traveled (was he ever there?).
While Democrats are big spenders overall, four of the top five most expensive trips have been Republican.
Oregon's representatives in Congress are a mixed spending bag with our Senators roughly in the top 40% of the spending (with Gordon Smith getting/spending more than Ron Wyden), but three of representatives in the House are in the top 30% (with Earl Bluemenauer spending the most of any Oregonian).

All in all, an interesting read and great report.

Posted by Jake on 05/04/05 @ 11:00 AM
Posted in Interesting, Journalism, Sad | 4 Comments | Permalink

4 Comments

Jack K. said on 05/04/05 @ 12:28 PM:
...interesting. I flipped over to Texas to see how my ol' buddy Tom Delay ranked, only to discover that he wasn't even first in his state, having been outspent by some Democratic congressman of whom I've never heard, Gene Green, who was #3 with a bullet, having spent more than both of Oregon's Senators...

Paul said on 05/04/05 @ 12:31 PM:
Not only is it interesting that four of those five most expensive trips were made by Republicans, but its striking that the "purpose" of their vacation was "educational".

I guess Republicans are totally and completely convinced that no matter where you go, as long as its abroad, people are poor, dumb and starving. Education is needed, and it is up to America to help. God bless.

Tom DeLay especially seems to think that his knowledge is worth 28.000 bucks. Twice.

Paul said on 05/04/05 @ 12:37 PM:
I guess the figures go both ways (Democrat and Republican), so you can't really conclude much else than that some senators are really living a rich life.

I checked out the senators of my birthplace: Richard Shelby and Jeff Sessions. Jeff spent 16.500 putting him in the 270th place. I have no problem with 13 trips totalling 16 thousand.

Richard really made a point, though. He has made two trips, one of which he spent only $338! He even declared his $13 meal!!

Better yet, he was sponsored for the second trip, so it didn't cost Uncle Sam a dime! (I'm not too certain if that's a good thing, though.)

Rob said on 05/05/05 @ 04:37 PM:
This is a no-win situation for any politician. If they accept a free trip, they're accused of accepting questionable gifts. If they use taxpayer money, they're accused of wasting government funds.

I suppose the only way to avoid any scrutiny would be for them to spend their own money. But honestly, would YOU do that willingly at YOUR job?

I didn't think so...

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