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Archive for July 23rd, 2010

Congress' Food Tab: $604,000 for Bottled Water, $152 at Quiznos

 

Great to know we taxpayers are keeping them living the lifestyle to which they have become accustomed….despite our lifestyle going down the toilet.

(July 21) — Crave ribs? Bagels and coffee or doughnuts? Seafood, subs or Chinese? So does Congress!

House members spent part of their Members Representational Allowances on these items — and more — during the nine-month period between late 2009 and early 2010 covered by the Sunlight Foundation’s House Expenditure Reports Database. The info is highly enlightening, revealing, for instance, the popularity of Chantilly Donut’s sinkers; what it costs to feed hungry congressional pages; and how lucrative it can be to own a part of the cottage industry of keeping our duly elected representatives fed and well hydrated.

According to the documents, one company in particular raked in the taxpayer dough: CapitolHost. At least 61 legislators and 20 congressional offices used the catering service, to the tune of about $169,143. But that’s only the tip of the iceberg salad, as you’ll see below.

To read more of AOL News’ audit of Congress’ expense reports, please visit the first installment in this series.

Note: Unfortunately, we can’t tell you how many burgers your representative ate. The disbursements data only itemizes where the various offices spent their money, not what they bought. (Before going digital, the disbursements did in fact get that specific.) Nor can we tell you what items they bought with the $276,461 in food purchases charged through Citibank, which provides a government credit card service — the fees all show up as “Citibank,” rather than the individual vendor.

The House’s overall tab

  • $2.6 million spent on food and beverages for reps and their staffers
  • $604K
    Spent on bottled water — in 19,000 individual line items, many for Nestle’s Deer Park water-delivery subsidiary
  • $397K
    Spent on catering — CapitolHost is easily the largest caterer serving the House, though there’s plenty to go around here
  • $135K
    Spent on meals at restaurants of all shapes and sizes, including $152 at Quiznos

Catering to our nation’s leaders

  • The Wares of Myriad firms have Gone Down the Congressional Gullet. They include Pennsylvania institution Crocodile Catering (tagline: “Great since 8/8/88!”), D.C.’s tasty-sounding Honey Biscuits and Virginia Beach’s The Gourmet Gang (which makes us imagine a pack of miscreants wielding spatulas and egg beaters for weapons). All of which suggests taxpayers’ money is going toward encouraging the proliferation of catering firms with funny names. More catering tidbits:
  • 59 companies, big and small, catered to legislators and their staffers
  • $7,536
    The amount Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings spent on catering — more than any other legislator
  • $1,316
    Average amount spent by legislators who used catering services
  • $124K
    Spent on Occasions Caterers, which had just three House offices as clients
  • $23K
    Spent on catering services by Betty Crudup — who we hope isn’t doing all the work by herself
  • $6K
    Spent on Brown Bag Catering (which, despite its name, does not specialize in peanut butter and jelly)

The go-to for gourmet grub

  • Wolfgang Puck’s fancy new restaurant Has traction — at least with congress. Restaurant Associates, the company that helps run Puck’s newish D.C. restaurant, The Source (along with offering fancy digs in the Kennedy Center), has a fairly large share of House food expenditures. The company also does catering — which might explain the Committee on Foreign Affairs’ massive one-time charge.
  • $63,016 spent with Restaurant Associates
  • $35,824
    The amount the Committee on Foreign Affairs spent with the firm (a kickin’ international theme party, perhaps?)
  • $5,812
    The amount Nebraska Rep. Lee Terry spent with the firm. He’s one of 13 legislators who logged an expense with Restaurant Associates

Can’t legislate without caffeine

  • large or small, industrial or retail, coffee companies make up a sizable chunk of house expenses. Part of this is because the top firm in this category, Joe Ragan’s Coffee, also sells some office supplies, too. More full-service than Starbucks, it was responsible for a little more than half of all coffee-related expenditures.
  • $84,794 spent with coffee-centric companies
  • 7,743
    Pounds of coffee beans (at $10.95 each) could be bought with that much money
  • 348,468
    Cups of coffee (about 45 8-ounce cups per pound) could be brewed from that many beans

BBQ: The people’s food

  • It’s A pretty common thread in the data: Lots of regional barbecue places showed up on the list, from spots in Kansas City to Denver to Birmingham, Mich. Unsurprisingly, there weren’t a lot of vegetarian restaurants among lawmakers’ favored eateries — veggie burgers don’t have quite the bipartisan appeal of burnt ends or baby back ribs. (Put another way: Your tax money is literally paying for pork!)
  • $10,673 spent with barbecue restaurants
  • $3,649
    The amount the House’s Committee on Homeland Security spent on Gates Bar-B-Q, a Kansas City, Mo., institution
  • $3,901
    The amount Colorado Rep. Ed Perlmutter (not to be outdone) spent on Denver’s Big Papa’s BBQ, which claims to have “the best ribs in Colorado”

Other tasty morsels of data

  • $37K
    The amount the House spent with the Good Food Co., which specializes in day care food
  • $8,786
    The amount spent on food and drink at various colleges and universities (a science center also showed up as a $1,595 food expense)
  • $1,401
    The amount Pennsylvania Rep. Joseph Pitts spent at Yoder’s Country Market, in Amish country

Who Ate All That Food?

  • Congressional pages Don’t Work on an Empty Stomach. One of the top overall food expenses was logged to FreedomPay, a company that makes it easy to buy food in the cafeteria without cash — something that seems less necessary as an employee using a debit or credit card, but more so when you’re a junior in high school. The expense was tied to the Page Revolving Fund, set aside for all those teenagers who do congressional grunt work. (The fund also paid for a number of nonfood things like “resident activities” and piano maintenance.) Thanks to FreedomPay expenditures, the pages’ office plunked down more for food than any other House office.
  • $209,673
    Amount spent by the Page Revolving Fund
  • $140,027
    Amount that went to FreedomPay — by far the fund’s biggest expense
  • » Other top food-purchasing offices: In second place is the Democratic Caucus, which spent more than half of its $193,557 in food expenditures on a weekend getaway at Kingsmill Resort in Williamsburg, Va. Waaaaaaay behind that is the Office of the Speaker, which spent nearly three-quarters of its $83,341 in expenditures with Occasions Caterers.
  • » Maybe it should be renamed the Chow-Down Committee? The House Committee on Foreign Affairs spent $40,479 on food, all of it on catering. The total was five times the amount spent by the next-hungriest committee, Homeland Security.

The hungriest guy in the House

  • Who’s Gregorio Sablan? He’s the House delegate for the Northern Mariana Islands (which didn’t even have a delegate until after the 2008 elections), who spent more on food than any other legislator. In fact, Sablan spent $6,000 more than the second-place legislator, Texas Republican Michael Burgess, who spent $17,515.
  • $23,457amount of Sablan’s total expenses
  • $5,127
    Amount spent in Sablan’s name specifically
  • $3,000
    Amount spent at Saipan’s Hyatt Regency by Sablan staffers
  • $3,000
    Amount spent with D.C. caterer CapitolHost by Sablan staffers
  • » Big names not far behind: After Sablan and Burgess is Guam Delegate Madeleine C. Bordallo ($17,374), whose travel expenses are also quite high. And behind her are two of the most powerful guys in Congress: Rep. John Conyers ($16,157), chair of the House Judiciary Committee, and House Minority Whip Eric Cantor ($13,454).

Which Party Is Hungrier?

  • Because we wanted to compare the two parties’ equivalent offices, we left the speaker out of it. The Office of the Speaker did, however, spend $83,341, most of it with one catering company. But beyond Nancy Pelosi, here’s how offices common to both parties — majority and minority leaders and whips, as well as party caucuses — spent money on food:
  • $298,734
    Amount spent by the Democratic Party’s largest offices — the Democratic Caucus, the Office of the Majority Leader and the Office of the Majority Whip
  • $202,927
    Amount spent by the Republican Party’s largest offices — the Republican Conference, the Office of the Minority Leader and the Office of the Minority Whip

What Democrats bought

  • Call it a Staffers’ Binge. Beyond the already-mentioned weekend getaway to Williamsburg, Va. (which cost $114,925), three top staffers — two for the Democratic Caucus and one for the majority whip — were reimbursed as individuals for $87,611. Those four items alone account for $202,536 of the total — or nearly what the GOP’s main offices spent. Other details:
  • $985
    The amount Democratic leadership spent on Chantilly Donuts
  • $2,362
    The amount Democratic leadership spent at Corner Bakery Cafe
  • $4,543
    The amount Democratic leadership spent with Coca-Cola Enterprises

What Republicans bought

  • Hard to say, as Most of it is hidden behind debit cards. The bulk of GOP reps’ expenses — around $144,146 — was spent through Citibank, so there’s no itemized data. Another $34,427, however, was spent with CapitolHost, by far the largest catering company they used. Other details:
  • $2,076
    The amount GOP leadership spent on Chantilly Donuts
  • $9,374
    The amount GOP leadership spent with coffee companies
  • $4,651
    The amount GOP leadership spent with Coca-Cola Enterprises

To see what Congress shelled out in other spending categories, click here.


Ernie Smith is the editor of
ShortFormBlog, a news site equally obsessed with numbers and bad jokes.

ABCNews

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European Bank Stress Test: The 7 Banks That Failed

 

The headline: 7 of the 91 banks have failed the test.

Check out Joe Weisenthal’s Take: It’s Official, The Stress Tests Were A Joke

Check out Gregory White’s Take: It’s All About The Euro And Sovereign Debt, Again

5 Spanish banks have failed the tests.

  • Espiga
  • Diada
  • Unnim
  • Civica
  • Cajasur

1 German bank has failed the test.

  • Hypo Real Estate

1 Greek bank has failed the test.

  • ATE Bank

Here are the details as they emerged:

  • The German Bundesbank says the that only one bank has failed. No banks need to raise new capital. Hypo Real Estate has failed, which was leaked before.
  • The French National Bank says all banks have passed the tests, according to CNBC.
  • The Portuguese National bank say all of their banks have passed the test, according to CNBC.
  • The Swedish National Bank has said that all banks have passed the test, per CNBC.
  • The Bank of Ireland needs €2.6 billion in funds to recapitalize (unconfirmed).
  • Bank Allied Irish Bank and Bank of Ireland have passed the tests, though both need additional capital.
  • Spain’s Diada Savings Bank has failed, per FT Alphaville.
  • Spain’s Unnim has failed, per FT Alphaville.
  • Greece’s ATE Bank has failed the stress test.
  • Deutsche Bank has passed the stress test with flying colors, having Tier 1 capital ratios significantly above the 6% minimum in all scenarios. (via Deutsche Bank)
  • All 5 major Italian banks have passed the stress tests, according to Bloomberg.
  • Spain’s Civica has failed the stress tests, which makes sense considering they were pursuing more capital earlier today.
  • Spain’s Cajasur has failed, per Alphaville. But do recall it is being merged with other cajas in Spain, so is already dealing with its difficult situation.
  • Spain’s Espiga has failed the test, according to The Guardian.
  • Overall, banks have only shown a €3.5 billion capital short fall. That is very small. But makes sense, since what we are talking about is small bank failure, not any large bank.

The full results can be found here at the CEBS website >

Here’s everything you need to know about who’s exposed in Europe >

The Business Insider

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FHA: 'We Are Officially Broke'

 

An interesting item in the Federal Register. This notice: (Link to FHA/FR)

 

SUMMARY: A recently issued independent actuarial study shows that the Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund (MMIF) capital ratio has fallen below its statutorily mandated threshold.

We can pretend that that the FHA does not need a bailout, but it does. Unlike its bad siblings, Fan and Fred, there has never been a question whether Uncle Sam is on the hook with FHA. We don’t need a fancy conservatorship this time. Tim Geithner over at Treasury will just write the checks to cover the shortfalls. The good news is that those debts will not show up on the Federal balance sheet. They don’t count because there are “assets” behind these loans.

The Notice would appear to be a requirement of some sort to solicit public opinions on policy changes at FHA. The proposed changes would (supposedly) address the high default rates that the FHA is experiencing. What have they proposed to achieve this? Surprise surprise, they are going to instill some sanity into their lending program.

This kills me. I, and a hundred others, have been writing and screaming that FHA was just a ‘bailout to be’ for a few years now. This was an easy call. FHA was making 96 ½% LTV loans to borrowers with low FICO scores. They did this in a period where RE values fell by 25%. Their business plan was, “How To Take a Bath on the Tax-payer Dime”.

Don’t look for these changes to come anytime soon. I suspect that this will not evolve to a point where actual adjustments are made until after the next election. But these changes are coming. Real equity of 10% will be required for borrowers with low credit scores. There will be restrictions on seller equity, or “concessions”.

My read on the proposals is that the FHA is getting out of what I call “Silly Lending”. If they actually do take these steps it will mitigate future losses. It will also sharply restrict the availability of mortgage credit. Similar steps are being taken by F/F. The implementation will be felt this fall. By spring time mortgage land could look quite different. The D.C. lenders are 95% of the mortgage market today. There are no willing private sector lenders. If Washington steps back RE will get illiquid.

Central to our problems is the fact that for many years a social agenda and lending standards were mixed. The goal was admirable. Make mortgage credit available to all so that everyone could enjoy a leveraged bet on home appreciation. What a terrible bet the feds have financed. There are very few winners in this story. I read the following as a mea culpa. I think FHA accepts that bad lending standards have ended up hurting those they intended to aid. And along the way it hurt all of America’s homeowners.

Given FHA’s mission, allowing the continuation of practices that result in such a high proportion of families losing their homes represents a disservice to American families and communities. It is FHA’s intent to eliminate this portion of its business, and utilize other established methods to reach and support these families.

In the end the mortgage mess will cost us nearly a trillion. A very big price. For that tab we should learn a lesson. Soft lending to achieve broad social goals is a mistake. Tell that to Barney Frank. This was his dream.

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Please Don't Bother Treasury Secretary Geithner With Your Complaints Anymore; He's Bored Of Hearing Them

 

Geithner bored by complaints from business about Obama policies

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner on Thursday waived off complaints by business leaders that President Obama’s health care and financial regulation laws are creating uncertainty and freezing job creation, arguing that the administration has actually provided “a lot of clarity” for the private sector.

“Businesses always want their taxes lower and always want to live with low regulation,” Geithner said. “There is nothing remarkable, or particularly interesting frankly, that we’re in the midst of another debate, which you hear in almost any administration, with people looking for ways to help affect the outcome on the basic path of regulation and taxes.”

“Every business in America today is in a much better position than they were, not just 18 months ago, but than I think many of them expected to be at this point,” Geithner said at a breakfast with reporters hosted by the Christian Science Monitor.

Geithner acknowledged that there is some uncertainty in the private sector for business, but said it is caused mainly by “deep scars” still left over from the financial crisis of late 2008.

“The big uncertainty that the world is still in … is that people, again, scarred by the trauma induced by the crisis are still looking to see how strong is growth going to be,” he said.

Pressed by The Daily Caller as to whether he was rejecting out of hand a 54-page memo sent to Obama by the Business Roundtable, a consortium of businesses with $6 trillion in annual revenues, Geithner tried to evade the question by focusing only on Wall Street and the financial regulation bill signed into law on Wednesday.

But when asked a third time by TheDC to address the BRT memo, Geithner said it was “a long, diffuse list of familiar concerns, again reflecting nothing remarkable … in the fact that business would like to operate with fewer restrictions.”

A BRT spokesman declined to comment.

It was a speech by BRT Chairman Ivan Seidenberg, the CEO of Verizon, in late June that poured gasoline on a growing wildfire of sentiment that Obama has shown himself to be anti-business.

“By reaching into virtually every sector of economic life, government is injecting uncertainty into the marketplace and making it harder to raise capital and create new businesses,” said Seidenberg, who had been one of Obama’s strongest allies in the business world up to that point.

General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt said around the same time that “government and entrepreneurs are not in synch,” and said the Obama White House and business leaders were not getting along.

By early July, the charge that Obama is anti-business had become a mainstream idea, with everyone from Newsweek to speakers at the Aspen Ideas Festival voicing doubts about whether the president understands markets and their interaction with government policy.

The basic argument by business leaders is that Obama’s health care and financial regulation bills have given so much discretion to federal government rule-makers – who have yet to draft hundreds of new regulations in the two bills – that businesses have little idea of the scope and shape of the impact on them, and fear that the effect could be severely punitive.

The financial regulation bill, said Sen. Richard Shelby, ranking Republican from Alabama on the Senate Finance Committee, “will determine how credit and money flows through the economy.”

“Until businesses know precisely what the new rules will require, they will likely delay any expansion and hiring decisions,” Shelby said in an e-mail.

In addition, Obama supports letting the Bush tax cuts expire at the end of this year for those making more than $250,000, and Congress has tried to pass a number of taxes on investments in recent weeks. And the prospect of a price on carbon emissions, which has been discussed but has begun to look more unlikely to happen this year, is also making businesses jittery.

The Daily Caller

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