TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/101491/1014100.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 10.6 KB | 243 lines

                                                                                NATION, Page 18

WASHINGTON

Perk City


Wonder why Congress is so arrogant about bounced checks? Perhaps
because its members are so used to the freebie life.

By NANCY GIBBS -- Reported by Ann Blackman and Nancy Traver/
Washington


    Members of Congress expect to be called Honorable, but
their claim to that honorific is looking pretty flimsy. First
came the check-bouncing scam, when investigators found that
lawmakers wrote more than 8,000 rubber checks at their private
bank last year, free of charge. Then came word of members'
stiffing the House restaurant, where prices are already dirt
cheap. Suddenly, talk-show comedians, radio deejays, newspaper
editorialists and the mailman were all talking about exactly the
same thing: How can members of Congress balance a budget and
spend tax dollars wisely when they can't even balance their
checkbooks or make good on their meal tabs?

    What could be a better invitation to civil-disobedience
revolt than watching lawmakers who earn $125,100 travel around
the world for free, have massages in the House gym for free,
have their cars parked for free and have their tickets fixed,
refusing to pay for the few perks that are not granted outright.
"If ordinary people did that, they would be charged out the
wazoo," says C.T. Anderson, a bartender at Manuel's Tavern in
Atlanta, who has heard plenty from his customers. "People are
just fed up."

    Hoping it would all go away, House Speaker Tom Foley at
first declared that check-bouncing privileges would be canceled
and members would be required to pay the same penalties as
everyone else for overdrawing their accounts. But rather than
blowing out to sea, the storm only gathered strength. Last week
Republican Pat Roberts of Kansas and Democrat Mary Rose Oakar
of Ohio revealed that roughly 300 legislators owed the main
House restaurant and catering service more than $300,000,
thereby confirming the charge that in Congress there is indeed
a free lunch.

    With a flutter of contrition, House members voted 390-8 to
shut down their private bank, which by this time had been
dubbed B.C.C.I., the Bank of Corrupt Congressional Incumbents.
Dozens of lawmakers came forward and admitted writing bad
checks, offering up the occasional absentminded staffer as a
sacrificial lamb. Refusing to release names of all the
deadbeats, Foley referred the issue to the House ethics
committee. But that move also invited derision at the idea of
the ethically blind leading the ethically blind. It turns out
at least some committee members, including the chairman, have
been named in the scandal.

    The furor began when the General Accounting Office
revealed that in one year alone, members of Congress bounced
8,331 checks -- 581 for $1,000 or more -- giving themselves, in
effect, interest-free loans. Millionaire lawmakers, said
investigators, were among the worst offenders, but the habit was
shared by Foley, majority leader Richard Gephardt and minority
whip Newt Gingrich, which may help explain the lack of
enthusiasm for an investigation among any but the most novice
Congressmen. "I wrote one check for insufficient funds," said
Gingrich, "and deposited funds to cover it within 48 hours."
Period.

    In some cases, debts of $10,000 and more were rolled over
month after month, with no penalties and no interest charged.
Sergeant at arms Jack Russ, who is in charge of the House bank,
bounced a check for $10,000 in 1989. Republican Phil Crane of
Illinois announced that he had heard of one case where a member
had bounced a single check for $23,000 in the House bank, while
already owing $20,000.

    Those who were innocent of any creative financial activity
rushed to clear their names in a nasty spectacle of finger
pointing. Some asked for letters stating they had never
committed any offense or for some official vindication. That
turned out to be a bad idea for Democrat David Obey of
Wisconsin, who demanded that Foley release a list of delinquent
members in the hope that his name would be cleared. Instead,
Obey discovered he too had bounced several checks for small
amounts during a 12-day period.

    Other members would not, as they say, dignify the charges
with a response. Ways and Means Committee chairman Dan
Rostenkowski was particularly forthright. "None of your
business," he told reporters. "None of your damn business." One
of his staff members explained that Rostenkowski had never
bounced a check but viewed any inquiries as "an intrusion into
his private affairs." An aide to Democrat Gus Savage of Illinois
said, "We're not discussing this at all with the press. If a
receptionist had answered the phone you never would have heard
from me."

    Majority leader Gephardt was at pains to explain that
lawmakers had been irresponsible only with each other's money,
not the Treasury's. "The public should be aware that no taxpayer
funds were used to cover insufficiencies," he said. "The funds
of other members of Congress were employed to that end."
Meanwhile, Speaker Foley called the reporting on the story
"hysterical" and observed that the vast majority of the checks
were for very small amounts.

    Which is, of course, utterly beside the point. All the
posturing just ignored the symbolism. Members of Congress seemed
in some cases to be genuinely surprised at the rage the
revelations unleashed. Why is everyone interested in this, they
wondered, and not my views on the coup in Haiti? All of which
served to confirm the impression of a body of lawmakers out of
touch with the lives of their constituents and in the habit of
placing themselves above the law. This is the Congress, after
all, that defends affirmative action and passes laws banning
racial discrimination in hiring but then exempts itself from the
same guidelines. It was impossible to get all the names of the
check bouncers last week because Congress is not covered by the
Freedom of Information Act.

    Certainly it would be unfair to charge an entire
institution with crimes committed by a few. But the real issue
here is not about criminal behavior. It is about a congressional
culture of privilege and protection that is entirely legal
because its members make its laws. And it is about how
representatives go about doing their jobs when they are their
own employers.

    There is no shortage of excuses from those who defend the
privileges. Many lawmakers consider public service a personal
sacrifice. If they were lawyers in private practice, they could
make many times the salary they take home as legislators. They
are often required to maintain two homes, attend costly fund
raisers for innumerable causes, live in an expensive city, work
long hours and go begging to wealthy supporters for the money
they need to keep their jobs for two more years. A cheap car
wash may not seem much in return.

    But this culture of privilege, so stubbornly protected, is
not well suited to these hard times. When uninsured workers
live in fear that one illness could wipe out their life
savings, it is enraging to hear of the House pharmacy dispensing
free prescription drugs, not to mention the private
congressional ambulance that protects members from the urban
nightmare of emergency-room gridlock. When families who know how
to squeeze a dollar until the eagle screams still cannot find
the money for a haircut, the House barber takes on a special
symbolic weight. When young families cannot get a mortgage on
a house, the idea of free loans to lawmakers is bound to rankle.

    Those members of Congress who ventured back to their
districts got an earful last week. "They're supposed to be
making policy for the United States, and they can't even keep
their checkbooks balanced," said attorney Steve Adams of
Naperville, Ill. "For God's sake, who's running the store?"
Freshman Republican James Nussle was back in Iowa eating at a
local Pizza Hut with his family when a nearby diner asked if he
planned to pay by check. Democrat Pat Schroeder, who insists
that she has not bounced any checks, says the furor "captures
the brick-through-the-window political mood. It shows you how
angry people are with the incumbents." She was talking to her
father on the telephone at the end of the week, and even he
asked if she had been writing rubber checks. "No, Daddy, I
didn't," she replied. "I can't believe that even you are asking
me about this."

    But with the onset of a campaign season, everyone will be
asking, as lawmakers are bound to learn in the months to come.
No event could have better breathed life into the call for
limiting the number of terms a Congressman can serve, a proposal
that refuses to die and is bound to land on ballots next fall.
But for what it was worth, legislators could take some small
comfort in the fact that few people could claim to be perfectly
clean. The culture of special privilege, it turns out, is so
pervasive that those using the House bank included not only
members and their staffs but also journalists who cover Capitol
Hill. Maybe it's time to move the nation's capital to Omaha.


________________________________________________________________
PERK CITY

    FRAMING

    Legislators and members of their staffs can get pictures for
their offices framed free of charge at a shop in the Capitol
building. Though the practice is frowned upon, some have
pictures for their homes framed as well.

    DINING

    There are 14 Senate and House eating establishments, ranging
from simple cafeterias to opulent dining rooms with crystal
chandeliers and black-tie waiters. A chicken-salad sandwich
costs $2.75, filet mignon $7.50.

    PRESCRIPTIONS

    The Capitol physician provides immediate medical treatment
for House and Senate members, and all prescriptions are free.
Health insurance is provided by a group plan offered through
Congress.

    PARKING

    Finding a parking place is no sweat for members of Congress.
When on official business, they can park in any spot, except in
hospital zones or in front of fire hydrants. And at local
airports they have access to specially marked lots, which are
free.

    HAIRCUTS

    Capitol Hill barbershops hark back to the good old days.
Price of a haircut is $5, a fraction of what most other shops in
town charge. Lawmakers can keep the rest of their bodies in
shape at the House gym, which features a masseuse.

    CAR WASH

    Members of Congress and their staffs can keep their vehicles
spruced up in two car washes located under the House office
buildings. The charge: a nominal $3.