What Congress Bought Itself With Your $1 Billion

The report's tally of congressional spending between June 2009 and March 2010


The Grand Totals$1,013,162,955


» Biggest spender: The second-highest-spending congressional office during the nine months we looked at was that of Democratic Rep. Jim Costa of California, who spent $1.3 million, with nearly a quarter of that being expenditures on staff. He was topped by fellow Democrat Pedro Pierluisi of Puerto Rico ($1.5 million), who cannot vote on legislation.


» Biggest expense: Benefits for retired federal employees took the largest slice of the pie, with the Federal Employees Retirement System showing some $80 million in expenditures.

Payrolls and BenefitsThe heftiest COST is paying for all those people. They need paychecks. They need insurance. And they need the government to cover those student loans. (Yup, Congress makes student loan payments for federal employees, essentially as a hiring incentive.)

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