Fergus Column in Today’s Union Leader
July 24, 2009I have a new column in today’s Union Leader that breaks some news. For what I believe is the first time anywhere in the country, the Union Leader today publishes online every line item of congressional office spending for NH’s members of congress, Reps. Carol Shea-Porter and Paul Hodes, for the 2007-2008 session of congress. The reports reveal that Shea-Porter spent $17,000 in taxpyaer dollars on a political consultant; that Paul Hodes sent more franked mail than all but one of New England’s 22 members of congress; that Shea-Porter’s $124,000 a year chief-of-staff appears to have traveled to NH to help with her campaign last fall and then billed the taxpayers for his travel expenses, including $1,800 in hotel bills in the month of October alone; and that Shea Porter spent 99.7% of her budget in 2007, leaving just $4,425 in the Treasury.
Read the whole thing at http://www.theunionleader.com/article.aspx?headline=Fergus+Cullen%3a+In+their+offices%2c+Hodes+and+Shea-Porter+are+hardly+frugal&articleId=a1f93de0-9f81-4a8d-bd35-9c87b16dba1e
