{"id":1483783,"date":"2022-05-19T08:00:16","date_gmt":"2022-05-19T12:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1483783"},"modified":"2022-05-19T08:00:26","modified_gmt":"2022-05-19T12:00:26","slug":"teleworking-democrat-members-of-congress-cost-taxpayers-70-million-since-start-of-pandemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/teleworking-democrat-members-of-congress-cost-taxpayers-70-million-since-start-of-pandemic\/","title":{"rendered":"Teleworking Democrat Members of Congress Cost Taxpayers $70 Million Since Start of Pandemic"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">26<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fteleworking-democrat-members-of-congress-cost-taxpayers-70-million-since-start-of-pandemic%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1483783&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><\/div>\n<p><em>By Adam Andrzejewski for RealClearPolicy<\/em><\/p>\n<p>While President Joe Biden urged \u201cAmericans to get back to work\u201d and said \u201cpeople working from home can feel safe to begin to return to the office\u201d Democratic members of Congress think that doesn\u2019t apply to them, according to the Washington Free Beacon.<\/p>\n<p>The news outlet reveals how a large number of Congressional offices\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/democrats\/dem-offices-on-cap-hill-remain-closed-after-bidens-call-for-return-to-normalcy\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">continue to sit empty<\/a>\u00a0in Washington D.C., ostensibly because of Covid-19. We estimate that these closed offices cost American taxpayers $139,548 each day.<\/p>\n<p>The Free Beacon reports that \u201cdozens\u201d of House offices sat vacant on the day of their visit in March, with signs informing visitors that staff was teleworking. They also reported 12 vacant Senate offices.<\/p>\n<p>Each House office is\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thoughtco.com\/allowances-to-members-of-congress-3322261\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">given<\/a>\u00a0about $944,671 per year to cover administrative expenses and pay its\u2019 staff\u2019s salaries. The Senate\u2019s allocation is based on the size of the Senator\u2019s state, but the average allocation is roughly $3.3 million.<\/p>\n<p><strong>RELATED: <a href=\"https:\/\/thepoliticalinsider.com\/immigration-and-customs-enforcement-ice-wasted-17m-on-empty-hotel-rooms\/?utm_source=home-headline-stories\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Wasted $17M On Empty Hotel Rooms<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>That comes out to $2,588 per day per House office, and $9,041 per day per Senate office. That totals $31,056 per day, with a very conservative estimate of 12 House offices working from home, and $108,492 for the 12 Senate offices working virtually.<\/p>\n<p>That means American taxpayers are footing a bill of at least $139,548 per day for teleworking Congressional staff members. For the last two years of teleworking, with about 500 workdays costing a total of $69.7 million.<\/p>\n<div id=\"subscribe\" class=\"email-signup inarticle\">\n<h4>Support Conservative Voices!<\/h4>\n<h5><strong>Sign up to receive the latest<\/strong> political news, insight, and commentary delivered directly to your inbox.<\/h5>\n<\/div>\n<p>Of course, teleworking doesn\u2019t mean that staff are not working. However, with Congress meeting in person, work would surely be more efficient with everyone meeting in the same place.<\/p>\n<p>Constituents that visit their members of Congress in D.C. can\u2019t visit these offices. Having access to your elected officials is an important part of any democracy.<\/p>\n<p>Notable office closures include Senate Majority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer and Sen. Patty Murray, the chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><em>Syndicated with permission from Real Clear Wire.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"disclaimer\">The opinions expressed by contributors and\/or content partners are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Political Insider.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Adam Andrzejewski for RealClearPolicy While President Joe Biden urged \u201cAmericans to get back to work\u201d and said \u201cpeople working from home can feel safe to begin to return to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":489,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1483783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1483783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/489"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1483783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1483783\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1483783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1483783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1483783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}