Georgia Rep. who wanted poor kids to work for lunch is cool with spending taxpayer money on his own
deathandtaxesmag.com 
We last met Congressman Jack Kingston (R-GAH) when he was going on about how he wanted all the poor kids getting subsidized lunches to have to work as janitors in order to teach them the beautiful life lesson of how there is no such thing as a free lunch. You know, because all the rich kids whose parents are able to afford their lunch obviously toil away in the coal mines after school to earn theirs. Also because the greatest criminals in our country are hungry children.
Now, the other shoe has dropped, as it is wont to do.
An investigation by Georgia’s WSAV-TV revealed that our fiscally responsible, “no such thing as a free lunch” hero has been expensing many of his ownlunches and his staff’s lunches over the past three years since he’s been in office. To the tune of $4,182. Which, according to Talking Points Memo, would have funded 2,000 school lunches.
That’s taxpayer money. Now, call me crazy, but as a taxpayer myself, I feel a lot better about paying for the lunch of a poor 8-year-old than I do paying for the lunch of a bunch of rich politicians.
The investigation also revealed that Kingston enjoyed $4,289 worth of free meals paid for by third-party groups like the Georgia Bankers Association and the Congressional Institute. He traveled around the globe on congressional business trips, racking up $24,313 in costs, and he expensed $145,391 worth of meals for campaign events.
That, friends, is a lot of free lunch. Not all of it provided by us, but enough.
I absolutely do not think that members of Congress should be allowed to expense anything. We pay them enough as it is, and that money should cover their food and travel expenses–especially if they can manage to be “fiscal” about it.
Not only do we pay them $174,000 a year, but if they serve over 5 years, they get a lovely pension package provided by us as well. I think they can afford their own damn lunch better than anybody, especially given that just over 50% of them are millionaires. Including Jack Kingston who, in 2009 at least, had a net worth of between $2,412,456 and $3,304,446.
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