Capitol Hill was very quiet last week. The Senate only cast four votes – two on the proposed farm bill reauthorization. One of the votes – an amendment to get rid of the federal sugar subsidy program - would have saved taxpayers $1 billion a year. The Senate voted to table the amendment on a vote of 50 to 46. The Senate also rejected an amendment to reduce spending on the food stamp program by allocating funds to the U.S. states via block grants. That measure would have saved taxpayers $23.6 billion.

The House was not in session last week; the chamber will reconvene on Monday.

What you paid

Last week taxpayers spent roughly $100 million on Congress.

Salaries of Members of Congress and their allowances/week:

Speaker of the House: $223,500/52 = $4,299

House and Senate Majority and Minority Leaders: ($193,400/52) x 4 = $14,877

Other Representatives and Senators: ($174,000/52) x 530 = $1,773,462

Average weekly budget for all House offices: ($1,446,009/52) x 435 = $2,096,421

Average weekly budget for all Senate offices: ($3,409,093/52) x 100 = $6,555,958

Non-salary money allocated for Congress: $4.656 billion/52 = $89,538,462

 

What you got

The House was not in session.

In addition to the votes above, the Senate reached cloture on the nominations of Mari Carmen Aponte to be Ambassador to the Republic of El Salvador and Andrew David Hurwitz to be U.S. Circuit Judge for the Ninth Circuit.