How easy it is to spend another's money.  Disgusting...criminals they are...throw them all in jail! 

And it was so taxing (pun intended) on them: "I never want to wear that many clothes again."  Oh, the sacrifices they must make and hardships they must endure on our behalf.

I often wonder whats the prupose of giving members of our Gov't paychecks. It's not like they spend their own money anyways. I say as an employee they should just receive a place to live, a vehicle for transporation, funiture and a credit card for food (like the foodstamp cards) based on their level of position within the Gov't as a salary. In the long run it may be cheaper. After all, as I said, they use our money anyways.

I wonder if that $350 is structured like a military per diem - they pocket the money whether they spend it or not.  Wouldn't surprise me.  I'd schedule more trips, too, if transportation, lodging & meals were paid for & they paid me $350/day to boot.  Why hang around DC when I can make an extra $350/day beatin' feet?

Actually it'd work out much more expensive. Here's why:

What would you rather, $100 to spend as you please, or $100 that you have to spend on furniture ([/insert other item]? It's the first one. There's quite a big difference in the value of the two, meaning that it's conceivable you might prefer $75 to say a $100 furniture voucher, and you might prefer that $100 furniture voucher to being provided a piece of furniture worth $125.

Now what's the point of paying politicians a salary? So that you can attract people of sufficient capability to the job in the first place. It's debatable whether that requires the current remuneration package, but you still need at least some form of remuneration or few people would want the job, and it'd also strongly dissuade poorer people from trying for the job (not a good thing to have in a democracy). Now say you reckon you'd need a pay package of $50,000 to get the right sort of people applying for the job. If you instead were to provide that in benefits such as government provided food, furniture, accommodation etc., then you might need a benefits package that costs you $67k to provide just to get a benefit to the person receiving it of $50k.

I'm not too impressed with the 'people of sufficient capability' we've attracted so far, I'm afraid.

I need on that gravy train! How hard could it be?

we COULD just give them MONEY and cut down on "expenses"...

Oh you need your car to do your job? SO DOES EVERY OTHER CITIZEN IN THE COUNTRY!