I was under the impression that part of the trip had to be "official capacity" for the taxpayers to pick up the tab? Which is not hard since all they have to do is schedule a speech near where they are campaigning. It just makes it look a tab bit more ethical (if that's possible).
This is Travis' particular obsession, and I'm not sure why. Wherever the executive branch goes it is in an "official capacity." The executive branch is by its nature political.
Everyone's got to have their Incredible Hulk. Mine just isn't very exciting, and involves lots of paperwork.
Honestly though, I'd of let this thing go except for the fact that the RNC refused for so long to say how much, if anything, they'd remit to the treasury.
Writing the Republican National Committee a check ain't the same as reimbursing the taxpayers.
You shouldn't let this go Travis. Bush may be the only President who thinks that campaigning for a rubber stamp Congress is "official capacity". I don't care if he does it, I just don't want to pay for it. The same should go for our next President. I'm sure my Republican friends don't want their tax dollars paying for Obama to campaign for Democrats.
Oh, please, Nick. Bill Clinton did the same thing, and so did presidents before him. Obama will do the same thing, too, so spare me the obvious and hackneyed Bush-bashing.
Again, politicians are politicians. They go places and do political things as a part of their job. And as I've told Travis, the Congress specifically enshrined the free postage so they could run for reelection on the cheap way back in the day. So let's not pretend that politicians have a "professional" side of their job and "political" one. It is all one and the same.
Keich is right - this is a non-partisan issue. I fully expect President-elect Obama and the Democrats to take advantage of this in the future, though I doubt it will be for Jim Marshall.
I simply want people to be aware that, when their local candidate says they're writing a $40,000 check to help pay for one of these trips, that's not how much the taxpayers are actually reimbursed.
It's significantly less, and even the candidate may not be aware of that. That's how little known this all is.
As for Clinton, Keich is right. He was particularly fond of traveling on the taxpayer's dime, both at home and abroad. Check the GAO report linked through some of my initial posts on this subject: http://searching.gao.gov/query.html?charset=iso-8859-1&ql=&rf=2&qt=GAO%2FNSIAD-00-209&Submit=Search
10 comments:
I was under the impression that part of the trip had to be "official capacity" for the taxpayers to pick up the tab? Which is not hard since all they have to do is schedule a speech near where they are campaigning. It just makes it look a tab bit more ethical (if that's possible).
This is Travis' particular obsession, and I'm not sure why. Wherever the executive branch goes it is in an "official capacity." The executive branch is by its nature political.
"There are no notations in the report to identify which trips the reimbursements are for, so I don't know how to match costs to specific trips"
-political accounting was designed to make writers go crazy.
Everyone's got to have their Incredible Hulk. Mine just isn't very exciting, and involves lots of paperwork.
Honestly though, I'd of let this thing go except for the fact that the RNC refused for so long to say how much, if anything, they'd remit to the treasury.
Writing the Republican National Committee a check ain't the same as reimbursing the taxpayers.
stay with it, there is value here.
You shouldn't let this go Travis. Bush may be the only President who thinks that campaigning for a rubber stamp Congress is "official capacity". I don't care if he does it, I just don't want to pay for it. The same should go for our next President. I'm sure my Republican friends don't want their tax dollars paying for Obama to campaign for Democrats.
Oh, please, Nick. Bill Clinton did the same thing, and so did presidents before him. Obama will do the same thing, too, so spare me the obvious and hackneyed Bush-bashing.
Again, politicians are politicians. They go places and do political things as a part of their job. And as I've told Travis, the Congress specifically enshrined the free postage so they could run for reelection on the cheap way back in the day. So let's not pretend that politicians have a "professional" side of their job and "political" one. It is all one and the same.
Keich is right - this is a non-partisan issue. I fully expect President-elect Obama and the Democrats to take advantage of this in the future, though I doubt it will be for Jim Marshall.
I simply want people to be aware that, when their local candidate says they're writing a $40,000 check to help pay for one of these trips, that's not how much the taxpayers are actually reimbursed.
It's significantly less, and even the candidate may not be aware of that. That's how little known this all is.
As for Clinton, Keich is right. He was particularly fond of traveling on the taxpayer's dime, both at home and abroad. Check the GAO report linked through some of my initial posts on this subject: http://searching.gao.gov/query.html?charset=iso-8859-1&ql=&rf=2&qt=GAO%2FNSIAD-00-209&Submit=Search
The link didn't work. Here's the GAO report: http://tiny.cc/UhRcl
keich makes me laugh...
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