I only wish The Wall Street Journal were pulling an April Fool’s prank with this story on Congressional bonuses. However, they’re not. The highlowlights:
- Congressional bonuses increased House aide pay by an average of 17% in the 4th quarter of 2008.
- Rather than return $9.1 million in budgeted-but-not-spent taxpayer-funded office budgets, which vary between $1.3 million and $1.9 million per member, 200 House members, both Democrats and Republicans, showered that on their staffs.
- Barney Frank (D-MA), chairman of the Financial Services Committee, gave bonuses to dozens of committee members who worked on criminalizing bonuses for employees who took TARP money.
- Loretta Sanches (D-CA) holds the record for the largest individual bonuses, dishing out $14,000 apiece to 3 aides.
- Tom Udall (D-UT) rewarded the members of his staff who took time off to work on his successful Senate campaign with those bonuses, increasing the net pay of 19 of his 22 aides to an annualized salary of $163,795 (including a part-time employee).
- Heather Wilson (R-NM) gave 13 aides up to $3,000 apiece in bonuses after her Senate bid fell short.
- Thelma Drake (R-VA) divvied up $40,000 among a dozen aides as a going-away gift after she lost her re-election bid.
The story does not mention how much in excess office funds was returned this year, but notes that in a typical year, between $1 million and $2 million gets returned, and that in 2006 (the previous election year), just $36,549 was returned.
