A new House of Representatives program has just gone into effect, passed in May, with estimates of its cost in the $12.6 million per fiscal year average range. This time taxpayer money is being used to pay off student loans run up by even more congressional staffers than before.

While huffing and puffing with much bravado over the bonuses paid out to top executives of companies that received TARP corporate welfare, but in the end doing nothing about it, the House stealthily voted to reward its own kind — House staffers — with a nice, fat perk.

The House raised the eligibility level for government subsidies to pay off student loans. If one is at the top level, receiving $168,411, now hard-working Americans will have even more of their earnings confiscated and redirected toward paying off the personally incurred debts of these already well-paid House staffers.

As of this August, 2,251 staffers were taking advantage of the porkulus. Spokesman for the Office of the Chief Administrative Officer Jeff Ventura, that’s the branch of the House that administers the program, is unable to estimate how many staffers will now be taking part under the new, higher-income limits.

The cushy benefit pays out $10,000 per year with a lifetime maximum of $60,000 and each representative gets to decide which of his or her staffers will receive the benefits. The Senate has a similar program, just on a slightly smaller scale. The Senate’s eligibility cap is $146,500, with a lifetime maximum of $40,000.

Not to be left behind in the grab-what-you-can-of-American-workers'-money (redistribution of earnings not one’s own) is the Executive Branch. Federal agencies spent more than $51 million to repay loans for 6,879 employees in 2008 alone. That’s an average benefit of $7,511, and is a 22 percent jump over the previous year.

Thomas A. Schatz, president of Citizens Against Government Waste said, "It's another example of the imperial Congress and setting themselves aside from the rest of the country. It goes along with the congressional jets, the executive jets. It goes along with the travel. It fits in with all the concerns about spending generally in Washington."

It’s not unusual for politicians and those employed inside the various bureaucratic agencies of the federal government to reward their own, either through newly created laws, or through corruption and abuse of the system. In fact it’s now commonplace.

Another story has surfaced showing that thousands of technology office employees within the Veterans Administration received bonuses over a two-year period to the tune of $24 million. The VA inspector general accused a now-retired VA official of distributing awards and bonuses on personal whims. 

Jennifer S. Duncan paid herself a $60,000 bonus, and some of Duncan’s family members, along with a few others, received “improperly authorized” college tuition payments amounting to $140,000. And in an unrelated incident in the VA, a technology office employee flew 22 times from Florida to Washington to visit a high-level VA official in what was termed an “inappropriate personal relationship.” That travel cost $37,000.

And they're just scratching the surface on the VA fiasco.

The majority of politicians and bureaucrats are disingenuous and self-serving, money-grabbing, power-hungry individuals who don’t have the slightest intention of representing the folks back home inside the parameters of the Constitution. Graft and corruption are more their style.

Can you imagine the extent to which abuse, corruption, graft, and outright malfeasance could occur within something as massive as a government-controled health care system?

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Still Free said:

Well, maybe this explains it. A few weeks ago I wondered why (in a comment to a health care blog) some of Obama's constituents have been so very, very quiet about his health care "reform" bill. My comment(s) were misinterpreted by some when I asked why these folks are not joining in with the TP people, and other groups who understand the ramifications of such a nightmare plan as Obama's. I also pointed out that nothing is free, especially not Obama's plan. But I failed to mention in my comments that I don't care a whit what color anybody is--it's their ideas, politics, goals and morals that matter. Well, now you must wonder, at least a tad -- could this be one reason why some Obama constituents are so quiet? Or are they smart enough to understand, but reluctant to criticize him?

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August 29, 2009
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danwhitehead1 said:

	I wonder - - - - - - if the Republic is going to survive this creep and his regime of swine?
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September 01, 2009
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