Word: congressmen
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...loophole that allows legislators to accept airfare, hotel rooms and meals if attending a legislative conference, visiting a company plant or taking part in a celebrity golf or tennis tournament. A spouse or an aide can go along; children somehow slip in. Common Cause found that in 1987 Congressmen took eleven years' worth of free vacations courtesy of this proviso...
...Congressmen can also take in cash directly by giving speeches for honorariums -- a misnomer, since little honor is involved. Consider the $2,000 the Oshkosh Truck Corp. paid each of six members of the House Armed Services Committee on April 1, 1987, for coming to breakfast. The eggs had barely been digested when, a few hours later, an Armed Services subcommittee voted to purchase 500 more trucks from Oshkosh than the Army wanted...
Oddly enough, though, few legislators voluntarily leave for private life. Congressmen routinely run for re-election; Capitol Hill salaries are no secret to politicians who spend years -- and a great deal of money -- trying to get into the club. What goes unmentioned in all the caterwauling about the sacrifices of public service is the joy it offers. Public officials lead interesting lives: they all have the opportunity to make a difference; some even make history. Compared with underappreciated professions like teaching and nursing, where doing well takes a backseat to doing good, Congressmen are handsomely paid. The days of politicians...
...Jackson began urging his protege to run for the House. Foley agonized and held back for so long that in the end he arrived in the state capital to declare his candidacy just hours before the filing deadline. In November 1964, Foley was one of 67 new Democratic Congressmen who rode to Washington on Lyndon Johnson's substantial coattails, ousting a Republican who had served in the House for 22 years...
Gibbs, who declined to be interviewed for this report, proclaimed in a nationally televised news show before he left the IRS that he welcomed "a full, fair and complete airing." Since his departure, however, Acting Commissioner Michael Murphy, a career IRS bureaucrat, has been actively lobbying Congressmen to prevent any hearings. He believes that the IRS, which rarely hesitates to expose the peccadilloes of private taxpayers, would be hurt by the publicity. Last month Murphy turned up in Barnard's office to discuss whether the dispute could be ironed out in private, behind closed doors...