Congress Spends $1B on Own Expenses

Taxpayers pay for coffee, plane tickets, oh, and drapes

By Kevin Spak, Newser Staff

Posted Jul 21, 2010 12:48 PM CDT

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Congress Spends $1B on Own Expenses — Dennis Hastert still got $362,939 to run an office, even though he hasn't been in congress since 2007. (AP Photo/Brian Kersey)

Congress spends a whole lot of taxpayer money keeping itself stocked with paperclips. According to figures assembled by the nonpartisan Sunlight Foundation, Congress spent $1,013,162,955 on its own expenses from June 2009 to March 2010. Aol News pored over the findings, and pulled out some choice expenditures. Like:

$114,925 for the Democratic Caucus' retreat in Williamsburg
$51.6 million to pay 637 chiefs of staff and deputy chiefs of staff
$12.6 million to pay staff member's student loans
$362,939 to pay for ex-speaker (and current lobbyist) Dennis Hastert's office

$7.5 million on office supplies
$317,304 for new drapes
$604,000 for bottled water
$84,794 paid to companies specializing in coffee
$11 million spent on newspapers (hey, at least someone's buying them)
$12.5 million spent on travel, for an average 45 trip expenditures per representative

For much, much more, check out the source here.
(More Congress stories.)

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