Kind gives back $120k from his congressional office budget
LA CROSSE, Wis. — As the national debt continues to balloon, Representative Ron Kind is offering some of his solutions to bring spending under control.
He’s targeting four key categories that he says are filled with wasteful and unnecessary spending. Those are health care, farm bill subsidies, defense cost overruns, and earmarks.
Another big way he believes money can be saved is cutting the annual automatic cost of living increase for members of congress.
To counter that, he’s been giving back a portion of his congressional budget every year since 1996. This year, it totals more than $120,000. “I’m not the only one doing it, there are other members of Congress trying to do it as well, but I’d like to see all the members of congress do it, because we’re making tough budget decisions, these are having an impact on other people’s lives around the country, so if we’re going to be asking them to be willing to contribute their share to deficit reduction, then members of Congress should have some stake in it as well,” said Kind.
15399964So far, Kind says he’s given back nearly 1.5 million dollars since he took office.
The U.S. Treasury Department says the national debt is just shy of 16 trillion dollars.
