As members of the Congress argue about across the board budget cuts from the sequester, spending figures from the House of Representatives show some lawmakers will have an easy time dealing with an 8.2% cut in their office budgets, while others will have to take some belt-tightening measures in 2013.
The official office budgets for lawmakers cover everything - personnel, travel, rent, communication, utilities, printing, supplies, equipment, mail - anything official.
A review of the office allowances in 2012 for House members shows 120 lawmakers spent over 95% of their office budgets, demonstrating that a cut of 8.2% could certainly force some changes, which could include staff pay cuts, furloughs, or reductions in general office expenses.
"We all understand the reality of these reductions," said Rep. Candice Miller (R-MI), who chairs the House Administration Committee, which has been urging lawmakers to heed the warnings about the sequester for several months.
As the figures below show, Miller spent almost 87% of her office budget last year, almost $175,000 below what she was authorized to spend for her Congressional office.
"We have to certainly lead by example," Miller said at a hearing Wednesday that was focused on House committee budgets, which also are shrinking.
Each lawmaker has a slightly different office budget, which is based on a variety of factors including the distance from Washington, D.C., the size of the district and more; that makes a direct comparison slightly difficult.
What follows is a list of members (including delegates) who served for the entire year of 2012 in the U.S. House, the amount of their office allowance and how much they spent. (The one exception included is ex-Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr., whose staffers were still paid through the end of the year, even after he resigned just before Thanksgiving last year.)
The last figure on the right in the table is the percentage of the office budget that was spent. No one hit 100%, but several were close.
In pure percentage terms of spending, there were eight Democrats and two Republicans in the top ten; ex-Rep. Nan Hayworth (R-NY) led the way, spending 99.91% of her budget; she had only $1200 left by the time she left office.
Another ex-Rep, Laura Richardson (D-CA), was next as she spent 99.5% of her budget, leaving only $7,000 on the table by the time of her departure.
One interesting note is that ex-Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), who retired earlier this year, spent 97.3% of his office budget, leaving less than $37,000 unspent.
That is a bit different than his son, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), who recently returned $600,000 in unspent office money to the federal treasury.
If you want to find the most frugal lawmakers, look at the bottom of this list; Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) followed through on his rhetoric of spending less in Washington, D.C., as the Ohio Republican spent only 63.35% of his office budget, not touching over $481,000 in approved office budget funds.
As members of the Congress argue about across the board budget cuts from the sequester, spending figures from the House of Representatives show some lawmakers will have an easy time dealing with an 8.2% cut in their office budgets, while others will have to take some belt-tightening measures in 2013. ...
