Thursday - July 02, 2009

Letters From Littleton

Now, I fully expect our British readers to be quite wound up about this, as it’s a major scandal in their government. I’ve been trying to follow it, as Peiper has sent me several clippings on this before. But frankly, I just don’t get it.

The English have Parliament as their Legislative Branch. I don’t know why the word has that extra “a” in it, but I have figured out that Parliament meets in London. And since the MPs - not the Military Police, but the Members of Parliament (think Congressmen) have to go to London to sit on their benches in Parliament (no chairs, but they have front benches and back benches), they’re allowed to get a house or an apartment there. It’s too far to drive. England is a large country, about the size of Missouri or Alabama (or Idaho or Michigan if you include Scotland and Whales and that bit of Ireland to make up the whole UK), this means the MPs need a place to stay while Parlia-ment is in session. And that costs money!

To offset that added expense, MPs are given an expense account. Each one of them - and there are lots of MPs, something like 659 of them, possibly 644 - gets the cash, and those expenses are going to ad up. But not really. You see, each MP is allowed £23,083 per year for expenses. That’s $37,834. About the price of a Nissan Maxima. MPs are already paid an extraordinary salary that averages £64,766 ($106,174). Compared to a US Senator’s mere $162,100. Compared with the $110-175,000 a low/mid-level executive would earn in the American corporate world. The entire bill for all the expense accounts, what they call the ACA (for Additional Costs Allowance) comes out to about $21 million per year. Which is about how much it costs New Jersey to put in a toll booth, or repave 17 miles of highway. Heck, California spends that much just to “rehabilitate” 3/4 of a mile of highway. So we are talking about quite a fortune here.

Ok, that’s just a bit of background. Now on to the scandal: the public over there is in a tizzy fit because ... get this ... the MPs are submitting expense claims in amount up to, but not over, their expense account level. And it’s rocking the nation. The nerve! The gall! The cheek, that these rotters have gone and spent the money that we said they could spend!

HUH???

Granted, some - many! - have put in for reimbursements that don’t actually wash. Like mortgages that don’t exist. And some have put in some rather egregious claims, like having the moat cleaned (must be from the House of Lords) or for the cost of building a floating duck house. Or buying extra manure for their gardens, 28 tons of it actually. Some even put in for some cash to get the mole catcher in for a visit, or for the bug man to come and spray for wasps. Outrageous! Those things have nothing to do with the cost of running a home at all! If the mole catcher’s bill is allowed, then the next thing you know they’ll want money to hire a kid to mow the lawn!

But the bottom line is that these law makers are allowed to claim this much per year, and quite a number of them are actually doing just that!! So heads are rolling on both sides of the aisle. Several have already stepped down in shame, and many have declared that they won’t seek re-election.

There are times when I just don’t get the British.

You may read all about it, in amazing detail, right here.

Posted by Drew458     on 07/02/2009 at 03:41 PM   
Filed Under: • UK •  
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