Unlike, say, a sales meeting for your top-selling independent insurance brokers, which has absolutely nothing to do with whether AIG moves back to profitability, or becomes a permanent arm of the US government.The House Democratic Caucus spent more than $500,000 in taxpayer money over the past five years for its annual retreats at resorts in Pennsylvania and Virginia.
On Thursday, Democrats will head to the Kingsmill Resort and Spa in historic Williamsburg, Va., for the three-day planning powwow. The resort boasts multiple championship golf courses, a full-service spa and six restaurants.
ndividual lawmakers pay for most of the expenses related to retreat lodging through their campaign committees, but the Democratic Caucus subsidizes some of the costs for what aides consider "official business" -- to the tune of nearly $100,000 each year, according to a Democratic aide involved in retreat planning.
For instance, the caucus picks up the hefty transportation tab, as well as the thousands of dollars in expenses each year for guest speakers, food and entertainment, according to financial disbursement records.
Democratic leadership sources were reluctant to talk about any aspect of the trip, but they defended it as an important planning session for the entire country.
You know, we gave them a whole building and everything just so they could have a place to plan for the entire country. We also provide them with offices filled with staff people dedicated to planning important things for the entire country. If that's not enough, I suggest they pass the hat and rent a VFW hall somewhere like most of their constituents have to . . . or figure out a way to pay for it without tapping government funds.
-A 100K PER YEAR retreat most of which happened during a boom.
-5M dollar (per outing) jaunts during worst economic period in 50 years...on taxpayers dime.
I see the equivalence.
k1
ryanculver.blogspot.com
$100,00 a year? When you describe the outing and then give me the tab I'm almost inclined to laugh. I'd expect it to be a lot more, and surely there are far more egregious wastes to be worried about. This post reminds me of that Austin Powers scene in which Dr. Evil calls up the UN to demand ... one MILLION dollars. Can you put your pinky up to the corner of your mouth when you tell us about the next trove of vein of waste, fraud, and abuse you discover? :)
Does this pass the "3 orders of magnitude" test?
That is, a number is significant if it is within three orders of magnitude of a greater sum. I find the rule useful in deciding whether to sweat purchases or not.
How much does it cost to run Congress? says "For Financial Year 2008 $4,330,451,000 has been requested"
To make the cut, you have to find waste 433,045 per year or greater.
Oops! My eyes could not quite deal with all those zeros. $4,330,451 per year or greater.
So lets see, if 200 members of the caucus went each year, that means the retreat cost $500 a head. Not sure this qualifies as headline news, but nice try at a rant anyway.
Meanwhile, the republicans do their retreat at the greenbriar, where rooms go for $300 a night. Somehow I doubt the republicans are winning any frugality prize by comparison.
i have to agree with the others here, this spending appears to be shockingly reasonable. i used to work at one of those wacky free-market think tanks in europe and we spent about €300k on a single conference involving far-less important people talking about far-less important stuff.
these things cost money.
"You know, we gave them a whole building and everything just so they could have a place to plan for the entire country."
Actually, we provide them with eight buildings to plan. (The Capitol itself, plus Dirkson, Hart and Russel Senate Office Buildings, and Canon, Ford, Longworth and Rayburn House Office Buildings.)
Oh, and there's the Capitol Visitor Center built for $621 million, which consists mostly of conference rooms, meeting rooms, an auditorium and a TV studio for use by Congress and a bit of space to glorify Congress to all the tourist/pilgrims that come to town.
Whilst I agree with the commentators that the costs above are not too outrageous that is not really the point.
I work for one of the British banks that now has a large government shareholding.
My business normally holds a two day conference every year at an external centre with overnight stays etc.
This year we instead had a one day business meeting held at a Bank owned building. I beleive this resulted in the new ccst being about 10% of the normal cost.
This is what responsible people should be doing in current circumstances. Looking at ways to save costs whilst still making sure the essentials happen.
How about the fact that these clowns in Congress allowed their pay to rise yet again? They've allowed pay increases for themselves every year since sometime in the mid-1990s and now they make about $165K a year.
How about as a symbolic austerity measure these losers take a 10% pay cut?! That's still a pretty good salary.
I am confused. Why is the Democratic Caucus spending any taxpayer money at all?
The Republican jaunts are partially paid by lobbyists, which I find more problematic than taxpayers paying for lawmakers to plan. I'd prefer to pay for their planning sessions than to have lobbyists peddling influence.
But I guess you forgot to mention that part, Megan.
Ah, the old "the other guys are even worse!" standby.
Is it any wonder we've wound up where we are, with two incompetent parties each struggling to keep their approval ratings in double digits, desperately hoping to keep the bottom from dropping out before the next election?
"The Republican jaunts are partially paid by lobbyists, which I find more problematic than taxpayers paying for lawmakers to plan."
The jaunts should be paid for by neither taxpayers nor lobbyists. They should be paid for by the RNC/DNC and/or individual members' campaign funds. Anything else is inexcusable.
Look, if this were the entire Congress going, I'd support using taxpayer dollars rather than alternate funding. But it's not. It's the *Democratic Caucus* or the *Republican Caucus*. Does anybody believe for a second that this isn't mostly a forum for strategizing against their opponents?
I don't want my taxpayers going to that. That's *their* job to fund, not mine.
The jaunts should be paid for by neither taxpayers nor lobbyists. They should be paid for by the RNC/DNC and/or individual members' campaign funds.
And who do you think funds the RNC/DNC? Lobbyists help fund them!!
They're supporting jobs in the luxury resort industry. Duh.
The baffling part is that after years, nay decades of such reports, the American people are still enamored of the political class and still have faith in the political process. Clearly, the vast majority of us are still knuckle-dragging cavemen.