[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 18 (Monday, January 30, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H841-H842]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    TIME TO END THE FREEBIE CULTURE

  Mrs. SCHROEDER. Mr. Speaker, I come to the floor today to try and get 
some answers to a new policy that was announced today in the National 
Journal's Congressional Daily. In that daily, it says that the Speaker 
will now be allowing Members of Congress to sleep in their office. This 
is a new policy and I have a lot of questions as to what is 
transpiring.
  We are now going through this period where we are seeing draconian 
cuts in all sorts of social service programs, and I find it a little 
interesting that at a time we are cutting out some of the poorest of 
the poor, we have now said that we have to extend compassion to Members 
of Congress because they are only making $133,000 a year and cannot 
possibly afford to live in Washington, DC. At least people in my 
district would find that a little startling in they do not find that 
that is a poverty wage and are a little shocked by that discrepancy as 
to what is poor and what is not.
  But the other thing that I keep wondering about as apparently we are 
engaging in this new congressional slumber party, things that we do not 
know:
  Is the House restaurant going to do room service?
   Are we going to rename the office buildings the House office 
buildings and dormitories? Does this qualify under the gift rule? Is 
this a gift from the Speaker to Members who use this? Will there be bed 
checks? Will staff be allowed to come or is this going to be income 
tested? Do you have to make at least as much as a Member to be this 
impoverished? Do we have to report this on our income tax?

  Mr. Speaker, as you know, the Members in the last term decided that 
we would be taxed on our cars, where we park our cars, because that was 
the only fair thing to do and to treat ourselves like the private 
sector.
  In the private sector, I assume that the IRS would tax us if we were 
given free room and board. So will the IRS tax us here? And since we 
are already paying taxes if we have an assigned parking place, what if 
we sleep in our car? Does that then come in under that? Or do we get a 
new IRS ruling?
  I find this new announcement very confusing, and I hope that we get a 
clarification as to what all of this is going to entail as we start 
this new bunk-in-the-House program.
  I also hope maybe it gets reconsidered, because I think the average 
American feels that if you are making what a Member of Congress makes, 
you can probably afford a little place around here.
  Furthermore, most people are paying their staff a whole lot less and 
they are able to live in Washington, DC, so I do not think it quite 
passes the straight-faced test.
  Mr. Speaker, I also am not too sure that it is the kind of image and 
decorum that we would like to show for this House and the respect that 
it has had for over 200 years. It is kind of amazing to me that for 
over 200 years we have gotten by without Members having to sleep in 
their office and, suddenly in 1995, things have gotten so tough for 
Members that this has to be extended.
  But I think it also falls into part of the whole gift rule debate 
that we have been trying to have on this House floor. Suddenly we get 
this gift, and being able to have free housing here apparently, because 
the IRS has not spoken, but apparently we are going to be given this 
gift, but we still do not have time to deal with the gift rule as to 
what kind of gifts we can get from lobbyists.
  Mr. Speaker, I think it is time to end the freebie culture. I think 
the American people think it is time to end the freebie culture. I 
think they thought it was time to end it last term when we passed it 
over and over again, and I hope that we could take time out to get to 
some of the real core issues before we see even more gifts being 
dispensed and more perks being dispensed to Members of Congress.
  I find it amazing that a lot of people would get very upset about an 
ice bucket being delivered to different rooms and still not being upset 
about Members then converting them into an apartment.
  Are people going to be able to bring families to the House? If you 
have your family in Washington, can you convert 
     [[Page H842]] your office into kind of a family living 
     quarters where they can all stay?
  All of these things, I think come from this new pronouncement, and I 
hope that we get a clarification later in the day from the Speaker, 
because I find this a very, very interesting new proposal that will 
probably make wonderful material for new sitcoms. If I were a sitcom 
writer and I read this, I would think, ``Wow. We've been waiting for 
200 years for the Congress to do this.'' Can you imagine? ``They eat 
together, they sleep together, they legislate together.'' But I do not 
think that is what I want as the image of this House, and I hope we get 
some more information on this very soon.


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