Word: money
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...courtesy of the tobacco industry. Off they flew, at about $1,000 per round-trip ticket, and stayed at the luxurious Hyatt Grand Champions Resort, where suites go for $300 a night, the greens fees are prepaid, and meals are included. In addition to expenses, most legislators got spending money -- $1,000 to $2,000 -- for participating in one of three 90-minute panel discussions that ended at 11:30 a.m. each day so members could tee off at noon...
...House and Senate took in more than $9 million in honorariums last year. The more powerful the legislators, the more invitations come their way. Freshman Representatives without a good committee assignment hardly get invited at all, but Dan Rostenkowski, whose committee writes the tax bills, collected the most money of all, $222,500. Jim Wright so easily surpassed the $34,500 that legislators are allowed to keep for personal use that he allegedly used sales of his book to get around the limit...
...huge sums that can be amassed through campaign contributions. Even though more than 90% of congressional incumbents are re-elected, almost all against token opposition, a bulging campaign treasury is useful to have anyway: it scares away potential challengers, and members elected before 1980 can keep the money when they leave, as a kind of IRA with no strings attached...
Like honorariums, campaign money follows power. Of the $172.4 million in political action committee contributions in 1988, fully 70% went to incumbents. Nor did the money stop flowing when the election was over: $2.4 million went to incumbents after last Nov. 9. Senate Finance chairman Lloyd Bentsen collected the most PAC money -- $2.4 million -- demonstrating that he didn't really need to organize that $10,000 breakfast club. Richard Gephardt, Tom Foley's probable replacement as Democratic majority leader, led House members with $610,107. Agriculture Committee member Bill Emerson followed with $579,478, Tom Foley with...
...Perhaps the worst part of the current culture is the amount of time and attention elected officials lavish not on the general public but on people who can lavish money on them. Members of Congress take to calling their contributors friends. The confusion makes for some convoluted rationalizations. A friend, the reasoning goes, can cut a member in on a lucrative investment, treat him to a luxurious vacation and supply him with cash, not because he has an interest in a one-line amendment to a bill that will save his industry millions of dollars, but because he is, well...