Friday Factoids - United States Congress

March 14, 2008

Today’s factoids about the United States Congress come to us from the Facts section on Harper’s Magazine’s website.  I must say some of these were extremely surprising to me.

In no particular order:

1. Number of the 535 free subscriptions Hustler offered members of Congress in 1997 that were rejected: 16
2. Estimated number of anti-slavery petitions sent to Congress between 1835 and 1836: 500
3. Number of members of Congress or their staffers who failed to file a tax return or pay back taxes in 1999: 856
4. Number of U.S. presidents since 1860 whose party controlled both houses of Congress by the third year of their first term: 12
5. Number of House members in 1979 who voted against making Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday a national holiday : 133 (number still in office in 2005 - 9)
6. Total value of congressional earmarks to appropriations bills in 2004: $32,700,000,000
7. Number of national parliaments that have a greater percentage of female members than the U.S. Congress: 71
8. Estimated amount spent lobbying Congress last year [2004]: $3,000,000,000
9. Amount Congress allocated Blue Springs, Missouri, this spring [2002] to help the town combat "gothic culture": $237,437
10. Number of former members of Congress or federal-agency heads who are now lobbyists: 240

Personally, I find number 6 to be quite disturbing in light of the "Waterborading" bill that was recently vetoed and failed to be overturned in Congress; mostly because it contained additional funding for projects which already had funding.

UPDATE: Just reading over CNN and I saw that the Senate rejected a bill that would ban earmark spending in bills [link]. Thanks guys, spend some more money the government doesn’t have while you’re at it.

Posted in Factoids