How Much Congress Spent on Food to Stuff their Faces with

From AOL News:

The House's overall tab$2.6 million spent on food and beverages for reps and their staffers

$604K - Spent on bottled water -- in 19,000 individual line items, many for Nestle's Deer Park water-delivery subsidiary.

$397K - Spent on catering -- CapitolHost is easily the largest caterer serving the House, though there's plenty to go around here.

$135K - Spent on meals at restaurants of all shapes and sizes, including $152 at Quiznos.

$7,536 - The amount Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings spent on catering -- more than any other legislator.

$1,316 - Average amount spent by legislators who used catering services.

$124K - Spent on Occasions Caterers, which had just three House offices as clients.

$23K - Spent on catering services by Betty Crudup.

$6K - Spent on Brown Bag Catering (which, despite its name, does not specialize in peanut butter and jelly)

$63,016 spent with Restaurant Associates.

$35,824 - The amount the Committee on Foreign Affairs spent with the firm.

$5,812 - The amount Nebraska Rep. Lee Terry spent with the firm. He's one of 13 legislators who logged an expense with Restaurant Associates.

$84,794 spent with coffee-centric companies.

7,743 Pounds of coffee beans (at $10.95 each) could be bought with that much money.

348,468 Cups of coffee (about 45 8-ounce cups per pound) could be brewed from that many beans.

$10,673 spent with barbecue restaurants

$3,649 - The amount the House's Committee on Homeland Security spent on Gates Bar-B-Q, a Kansas City, Mo., institution.

$3,901 - The amount Colorado Rep. Ed Perlmutter spent on Denver's Big Papa's BBQ, which claims to have "the best ribs in Colorado"

$37K - The amount the House spent with the Good Food Co., which specializes in day care food.

$8,786 - The amount spent on food and drink at various colleges and universities.

$1,401 - The amount Pennsylvania Rep. Joseph Pitts spent at Yoder's Country Market, in Amish country.

$209,673 - Amount spent by the Page Revolving Fund.

$140,027 - Amount that went to FreedomPay -- by far the fund's biggest expense.

Other top food-purchasing offices: In second place is the Democratic Caucus, which spent more than half of its $193,557 in food expenditures on a weekend getaway at Kingsmill Resort in Williamsburg, Va. Waaaaaaay behind that is the Office of the Speaker, which spent nearly three-quarters of its $83,341 in expenditures with Occasions Caterers.

The House Committee on Foreign Affairs spent $40,479 on food, all of it on catering. The total was five times the amount spent by the next-hungriest committee, Homeland Security.

Who's Gregorio Sablan? He's the House delegate for the Northern Mariana Islands, who spent more on food than any other legislator. In fact, Sablan spent $6,000 more than the second-place legislator, Texas Republican Michael Burgess, who spent $17,515. $23,457 - Amount of Sablan's total expenses

$5,127 - Amount spent in Sablan's name specifically.

$3,000 - Amount spent at Saipan's Hyatt Regency by Sablan staffers.

$3,000 - Amount spent with D.C. caterer CapitolHost by Sablan staffers.

Which Party Is Hungrier?

Because we wanted to compare the two parties' equivalent offices, we left the speaker out of it. The Office of the Speaker did, however, spend $83,341, most of it with one catering company. But beyond Nancy Pelosi, here's how offices common to both parties -- majority and minority leaders and whips, as well as party caucuses -- spent money on food:

$298,734 - Amount spent by the Democratic Party's largest offices -- the Democratic Caucus, the Office of the Majority Leader and the Office of the Majority Whip.

$202,927 - Amount spent by the Republican Party's largest offices -- the Republican Conference, the Office of the Minority Leader and the Office of the Minority Whip.

What Democrats bought:

Beyond the already-mentioned weekend getaway to Williamsburg, Va. (which cost $114,925), three top staffers -- two for the Democratic Caucus and one for the majority whip -- were reimbursed as individuals for $87,611. Those four items alone account for $202,536 of the total -- or nearly what the GOP's main offices spent.

Other details:

$985 - The amount Democratic leadership spent on Chantilly Donuts.

$2,362 - The amount Democratic leadership spent at Corner Bakery Cafe.

$4,543 - The amount Democratic leadership spent with Coca-Cola Enterprises.

What Republicans bought:

The bulk of GOP reps' expenses -- around $144,146 -- was spent through Citibank, so there's no itemized data. Another $34,427, however, was spent with CapitolHost, by far the largest catering company they used. Other details:

$2,076 - The amount GOP leadership spent on Chantilly Donuts.

$9,374 - The amount GOP leadership spent with coffee companies.

$4,651 - The amount GOP leadership spent with Coca-Cola Enterprises.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Pigs at the trough!!!

Anonymous said...

Just one more reason they need to be voted out of office.

Anonymous said...

Explains the bad smell and the amount of crap they spread. Difficult to "keep it clean" in DC.

marylou said...

Is there nothing these elected officials won't do to scam every taxpayer?
Think about this in NOVEMBER.

Anonymous said...

Talk about the Zero Generation.....they're all about the I, Me, and My.

The whole lot of them need to be voted out in November!! Tired of picking up their tab!!!!!

I make my own coffee and take it to work in a thermos. Make my own lunches and don't eat out at all! We pinched tax-paying American citizens cannot afford to pay to eat out or pay for catered foods/coffee on the job! Life's little luxuries of the demons on the hill.

Anonymous said...

...and we still have children that go to bed hungry in this country because why???

I gave up Starbucks over 2 yrs ago as an 'experiment' ...saw my savings...money that could be better spent elsewhere.
I've done that across the board in our family BECAUSE of the screw ups in our government, WE all have to tighten our belts.

They get all these 'perks' on my dime. SOMETHING is seriously wrong.

Anonymous said...

who voted them into office? There's the heart of the problem, the complacent ignoramus with the right to vote for the phony rep. promising change. i.e. same ole shit, different party. I can hear the laughs ib DC as they vote themselves more perks.

Anonymous said...

OINK, OINK, OINK, Now I know why we suffer from Pork Barrel Spending. Our Congress loves pork in the bills and in their stomachs. WHAT A BUNCH OF PIGS!

bob lee said...

It is so easy to spend other people's money.
Sure have a donut on me!

How can we rein them in? If we could all get back to biblical standards of the 10 commandment, loving God and each other, we could eliminate much of this.

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