INSANE!
Insane! When will people wake up?! In California where the legislature is making it impossibly expensive for the average person to drive a car at all, the same legislators drive V8 Caddies AT TAXPAYER EXPENSE!
The following is from the LA Times.
"Legislators’ cars cost taxpayers $3.2 million in three years
The tab includes gasoline and insurance. Use by family members is covered too. The benefits, rare outside California, may be curtailed.
June 16, 2009|Patrick McGreevy
SACRAMENTO — When not in a capital gripped by budget crises, state Sen. Ron Calderon can be found touring his San Gabriel Valley district in a Cadillac STS V8 Luxury Sports Sedan that the state bought for $54,830.
The Democrat from Montebello spent an average $83 per week on gasoline last year, charged to California taxpayers on a state-issued card.
When legislators’ cars need maintenance or are in accidents — even with spouses or offspring at the wheel — taxpayers also pay, state records show.
The cost of providing lawmakers with Cadillacs, Lincoln Town Cars, Priuses and Lexuses, keeping the vehicles full of gas and fixing them when they crash was $3.2 million during the last three years.
Although that sum is a small fraction of the $24-billion budget shortfall, it has drawn the attention of the California Citizens Compensation Commission. The panel, which determines lawmakers’ pay and recently voted to slash their salaries by 18% starting next year, will meet this week to consider cutting benefits as well.
Commission Chairman Charles Murray said the idea that taxpayers are providing legislators with $50,000 luxury cars is hard to swallow, given the state’s budget problems.
"I personally think it’s ludicrous," said Murray, who owns an insurance company in Los Angeles. "You have guys out of work, people losing their job, departments downsizing, and they [legislators] are saying, ‘Look at me in my STS.’ "
<p style="margin-bottom: 0.16in; border: none; padding: 0in; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.21in; widows: 2; orphans: 2″>California is one of only three states that provide legislators with cars for use in their districts, and the vast majority of states do not provide gasoline cards, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
The Golden State’s 120 lawmakers are by far the highest paid in the country, with a $116,208 base salary — more for leadership positions — and about $36,000 a year in tax-free per diem allowance to defray living expenses away from home. And in Sacramento, lawmakers have access to a pool of state cars.
The state spreads part of the purchase price of a car over a four-year "lease" to the lawmaker, factoring in depreciation, and pays 90% of the monthly cost or up to $350, whichever is less. Because lawmakers pay a small portion of the cost, they are permitted to use the cars for "incidental" personal travel, according to Jon Waldie, the Assembly’s chief administrative officer."
thats ridiculous! no wonder they are broke
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Federal legislators and state legislators can vote to spend what ever they want on themselves and have no one to veto their wasteful spending.
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Crazy. I’ve had this plan in my head that would be great, but no legislator would every pass it. The plan is this: No elected official would get paid more than the average income of the people he/she represents. That includes jobless people who have had a job in, say, the last year. Or who are registered to vote. And they have to have the same crappy insurance that the rest of us have with the same co-pay and a vehicle to do their job? Maybe, but only the same sedan that normal people are provided. While at work. Not at home. They have to buy their own car with their own money.
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Nothing makes sense about California! I lived there four years – ’88 – ’92 — it’s only worse now. 🙂
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