Saturday, April 03, 2010
Todd Tiahrt
Republican Representative Todd Tiahrt of Kansas is blaming President Barack Obama for having to spend more taxpayer dollars on his congressional office. Tiahrt claims the 11% increase in spending is due to the fact that his office has been getting bombarded with more phone calls from angry constituents—anger that’s mostly directed at Obama, the congressman insists. He says calls averaged 50-60 a day during the Bush administration, but since Obama took over the White House, the rate is more like 200.
More than one-fifth of Tiahrt’s spending bump was to hire more personnel, including five people who also are working on his campaign for the U.S. Senate. Tiahrt is battling fellow Representative Jerry Moran for the GOP nomination to succeed Senator Sam Brownback, who is running for governor.
Tiahrt’s rationale of blaming Obama for his extra spending did not sit well with the Wichita Eagle, which wrote the excuse “was not credible” because more than half of the $196,000 in higher staffing expense was for the five people who were also working on Tiahrt’s Senate race.
The newspaper’s editorial concluded: “There’s apparently nothing (including shame) to prevent Tiahrt and others in Congress from operating in ways that increasingly blur their legislative and political work, or find their message out of sync with their own spending. But they shouldn’t expect constituents to approve, or to fail to recognize, campaign propaganda — and hypocrisy — when they see it.”
This is not the first time that Tiahrt has faced charges of dubious financial conduct. In November the Office of Congressional Ethics recommended an investigation of Tiahrt’s relationship with the PMA lobbying firm, but in February the House ethics committee cleared him of misconduct.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
Complaints About Obama Drive 11 Percent Surge in Tiahrt's Office Spending (by Dion Lefler, Wichita Eagle)
Message Out of Sync with Spending (editorial, Wichita Eagle)
House Ethics Probe Avoided Interviewing Members of Congress in PMA Case (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)
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