The Mudflats

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has made good on her promise to put congressional spending records online for the first time ever.  Score one for transparency in government!

As long as a Representative stays within the guidelines, they have broad latitude about how to spend their alloted money. 

At first glance the report is a bit overwhelming, and to the lay person there are many items that remain mysterious despite this new found transparency.  What is “Franked Mail” for instance?  What is the difference between “printing/reproduction” and “photographic transfer?”  (shrug)   But there is something in the vast list, that appears on every single representative’s cost breakdown, to which we can all relate.  I speak of bottled water.

Strange to have that as its own line item, thought I.  Why not put it in with Food/Beverages?  Surely, water is a beverage, isn’t it?   Then I began to wonder.  What doesa typical U.S. Representative spend on bottled water every year?  They probably have those giant water bottle dispensers in the office and that’s where the expense comes from, I thought. So they’re probably all pretty close to the same amount.  But I saw that some of the line items for bottled water were in the amount of $2.00, the cost of a single serving bottle.  Hmm.  Maybe this was more complex than I originally anticipated.

So, I decided I’d hold an impromptu “watergate” investigation, if you will.  I’d pick 5 prominent Republicans and 5 prominent Democrats and just for fun, I’d see how much they spent on bottled water.  The following is a yearly projection based on the quarterly amounts posted in the report.  I mean, we’ve got to have fun with all this new-found transparency, right?

I chose the names of those to be audited before I calculated their bottled water expenditures.  I picked them based on name recognition…all except for Bob Goodlatte.  He’s a Republican from Virginia, and I figures a Republican named “Good latte” must get his fair share of ribbing about beverages.  Kind of like a liberal representative from Massachusetts named Billy Redmeat.   I wondered how much bottled water a Goodlatte might consume.

Here is the breakdown.

Democrats:
Barney Frank $368/yr
Dennis Kucinich  $795/yr
John Conyers      $816/yr
Alan Grayson $1217/yr
Nancy Pelosi        $2052/yr (Holy cow!)

Knowing how much Alaska Republican Don Young loves to rail on “Nancy Paloosi” (as he calls her for some inexplicable reason), he’ll probably have a heyday over her $2k+ bottled water bill.

Republicans:
Bob Goodlatte $733/yr (Yeah, but what’s his latte bill?)
Michele Bachmann $790/yr
John Boehner     $1376/yr
Ron Paul                 $2571/yr  (Yikes!)
and finally…
Don Young              $3011/yr!!!

And we have a winner!   For my randomly chosen top 10 representatives, Don Young is #1 for bottled water consumption at three THOUSAND eleven dollars a year, outspending Barney Frank almost 10:1!  That’s a lotta H2O.

Interestingly, in my sample group, Republicans spent 62% more money on bottled water ($1696/year) than Democrats ($1049/yr). Theories are welcome.

If I had a team of researchers here at Mudflats Central, I might set them to the task of figuring out if Young is #1 for the entire House of Representatives, or which party spends more on bottled water and by how much.  But alas, this staff of one isn’t up to the task.

So, feel free, if this sort of “fun with transparency” appeals to you, to click HERE, look in the large box and find the listing under each volume for “Member Offices” which will show you the alphabetical range included in each volume. Then click the appropriate one, scroll down until you find your rep (names in tiny print on the left). Add up the bottled water expenditures (usually about 8 or 9 lines) and multiply by 4 to get the yearly projection. Then share your findings in the comments!

Alaska has thrown down the gauntlet. See if your district can dethrone the King of Bottled Water – Don Young! Or perhaps you’ll have an even more dehydrated representative than the frugal Barney Frank! (Hey, does he have anything to do with “Franked Mail?”)