GOP Leaders Splurge on Coffee, Donuts

While serving up sound bites on belt-tightening and cost-cutting to the public, House Republican leaders have been helping themselves to the exact opposite behind closed doors, chowing through $24,000 in taxpayer dollars on food and beverages in just three months, according to an investigation by the Washington Guardian. John Boehner's office chugged down $2,204 worth of coffee in November alone; other GOP favorites include Whole Foods, Dunkin Donuts, PF Chang's, Qdoba, and Taylor Gourmet.

With the sequester slashing $85 billion from government agencies' budgets, the report of congressmembers' expensive appetites has stomachs churning. “The larger question—where will Congress show its own belt tightening when some of the dislocations caused by sequester begin to bite out in the country—is as yet unanswered,” says one analyst. "But I doubt it will involve cutting out the coffee at the caucus meeting.” (More sequester stories.)