According to an analysis done by Mike Soraghan in The Hill's Dec 12th issue, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has spent a whopping $3,003,048 from the Speaker's office account for 2007. That compares with the $1,846,406 spent in 2006 by her predecessor Dennis Hastert, or a 63% increase in expenditures.
One of the most interesting expenditures is $16,058 on flowers. FLOWERS!!! According to the article, she credited most of the flower expenditures "for visits of foreign dignitaries". You have got to be kidding me. Assuming her spokesman is telling the truth, what kind of flowers exactly are they buying and what are they doing with them? Dropping gold plated rose petals in front of these dignitaries?
How many visits can Congress actually have by any significant foreign dignitary? You can not say that routine visits by ambassadors qualify for big flower displays. In fact, her spokesman in the article cited Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and French President Nicolas Sarkozy as examples. Let's break down this number a little bit.
Being generous, let's say they are actually in session for 40 weeks a year (being very generous). Then let's say there is a visit by a foreign dignitary every other week (can anyone recall 20 visits to DC by figures like those cited this year?), which is still unlikely. That means she could spend $800 per week on flowers for foreign dignitaries. I could buy a lot of flowers for $800 each week. And that still begs the question of why does every foreign dignitary need to be welcomed by fresh flowers. What a waste of money! So much for all that TALK about how the Dems were going to bring a new era of fiscal responsibility to Congress.
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