I’ve been paying back Social Security for years because of an error on their end. Had I been able to hire a lawyer I’m sure they would’ve dropped it, but my benefit amount is so tiny, I couldn’t afford to fight it. The system preys on low income elderly and disabled Americans
@@Shawblade Yes. She's the clear option for the US, but you can't trust a snake not to bite you. Posturing viper or enticing boa constrictor: pick one.
@@superbotnotabot I'm not an expert on your law, but Abraham Lincoln famously stated in some early legal sense that it is your right to fight against a government that doesn't work in x/y way.
Any government, no matter how good-meaning they are, absolutely need to be kept in check. And let's not kid ourselves. With American politicians, the law is more of a suggestion than a code.
Any honor system for politicians is a joke. Make them submit receipts. Those with honor don't mind doing so. I am a retired civil servant, and I had to submit receipts, including the crappy Denny's lunch I had while traveling for business.
Tbf that number's about 5.5k per rep, which when accounting for most of them having to travel far to DC and pay for accomodations with those funds doesn't sound too outrageous. Not to say that more oversight would be a bad thing, but if one wants to get outraged it's much better to look at campaign funding/super PACs and reps' stock portfolios.
@@user-kb8rc5vq2i Maybe I should’ve been more clear. The receipts are not the problem. 50 MILLION Americans were food insecure last year. We already pay these people a salary, foot the bill for security, etc. They shouldn’t get a single meal comped on our dime until our children are fed, at the very least.
@@charliekowittmusic I think this is a separate issue, and frankly mixing them together doesn't really do much to help anything. Solving food insecurity requires a mixture of policies, like re-expanding welfare eligibility, and introduce a more graded system where people aren't kicked off completely the second they make a single cent above some arbitrary cutoff-point, but where there's multiple levels instead. This combined with better support for small scale and local farmers (not big agri-business), programs for building affordable (and social) housing, legislation to help enable unionization and crack down on union-busting and more. Getting lost on reps compensation for job-related expenses is like missing the billion-dollar forest for the thousand-dollar trees. That said It's always galling to witness this kind of inequality, and I think a better and more cost-effective solution would be for the federal government to provide some form of accommodation for reps that have to travel far, like some big housing estates for reps with reasonably sized studio apartments to use when they're in session. I think that would eliminate the biggest expenses while easing a little of the price pressure on the local housing market.
They looked at themselves in the mirror and said, "You know what, we can trust these people to tell us what they're spending our money on." And then they had a good laugh as they passed this bill.
Considering most politicians are just about the most untrustworthy people you can meet no matter where in the world you are, allowing them any kind of honour system is plain ludicrous - and I'd bet they're the ones who decided they get to use an honour system.
Tax payers reimbursing politicians for travel expenses??? Yeah no. They make money, a lot more than us thanks to insider trading. They don’t deserve a cent from us. And relying on some kind of “Honor System” is by far the funniest thing I’ve heard all day!
So they get an honor system to get what? Tax cuts or something that keeps more money in their pockets. They get too many loopholes while average people are hunted down by the irs for being 10 dollars off or not putting their middle initial on the form. Seriously, we could deal with so much of our debt if corporations and politicians didn't get away with so much financial stuff. Not to mention repeatedly misplacing funds or 15+ other things eating up taxes.
It makes sense. After all, it is not like a high end hotel is going to bother giving you a receipt that could take a staffer (not even the representative themselves) only minutes to scan into database, right? Right?....
It really all comes down to how much staffing you have, and that comes down to what kind of projects you are working on. I think under $20k is reasonable. Costs like over 10x that for one missile.
Using the honor system for a political class that has no concept of honor or accountability is wild. We need to start tightening the leashes on these corrupt politicians.
going TDY in the Air Force, you are given a flat daily Meals & Incidental Expenses per diem based on the average cost for the area. I guess it was deemed too fussy to gather receipts for every instance of food or drink. The individual can then potentially find meals that add up to be less expensive than the daily stipend and pocket the difference, but every airman’s total reimbursement for M&IE would look the same at the end of the trip, being that same flat rate. So that’s also an honor system in a way, but at least the payout is capped so no one can be reimbursed over a maximum. It seems to me that that would be preferable and simpler to track than just letting politicians claim whatever.
The amount of paperwork I've filed for reimbursements with my work probably out weighs more than what some people will ever do in their entire life. And I was just a touring performer, and yet I was held to a higher standard than sitting Congress people.
Fair point. Devil's advocate: do you trust zoom with your representative's vote? Hypothetically, there are a lot of ways that a national politician's work could be corrupted via bad actors interfering electronically. This doesn't mean it's a hopeless idea, but we might need to prepare some safeguards, or I might need to realize how wrong I am if I am.
@@Hanniah--Heart thst is also a very good point. But you have to admit with the technology we have today such remote meetings are possible and honestly them wasting the taxpayer money like this is ludicrous. They aren’t diplomats, just people from different states of this nation. Zoom can definitely be compromised I agree, but they should be finding ways to make such sessions possible and have ways to keep everything uncompromised. The fact that this reimbursement is honor based and not even receipt based is just the start of things that need to change
@@Pikaholmes221b Em, have you actually broken those mumbers dowm? On the high end of the food expenses in the video, it's less than $10/meal and the lodging is something like $2,600/month on rent for two places that, under current design, they functionally are required to have --one in their home state... That they effectively ARE diplomats of according to the constitution, and one in DC where they meet not just with other congressmembers and committees, but entire bodies of staff working on bill writing and more and whicb ia a capital city of a nation known for price hiking rent in major cities. Hypothetically underpinning some of that with virtual meetings could hypothetically reduce these expenses even further, but they're pretty dang reasonable given the current system.
@@Hanniah--Heart agreed but if the technology to make these sessions both cost effective and maybe efficient, then they should be trying to do it. While being in person is often the best way to get things done, especially when it concerns the entire nation, the fact of the matter is this travel often squander something more valuable than money, time. If they are able to instantaneously meet for these meetings I’d think that will be worth it. Sometimes things are in a deadlock and sessions are suspended, they have to travel back and forth which wastes valuable time. What i am saying is definitely ain’t perfect, and i know very little about politics and these systems, all i can hope for is that things get done, and the money is well spent. While conceptually I understand they can be considered diplomats in a way by definition they aren’t as a diplomat is someone who furthers their nation’s interests abroad and honestly they shouldn’t really have to travel, since it often feels like they are wasting time, all i want is for people to get things done effectively. Though reimbursement on an honor system is absolutely ludicrous, transparency is key in these types of things, if they want that reimbursement they need to bring receipts.
The IRS wants to know what time a took a dump 15 yrs ago down to the second, but members of the government can hand in a crayon drawing saying “trust me bro” yo auditors
Need receipts to at the VERY least to know that the money is being spent on what it's meant to be spent on. I'm also curious how those expenses shown in the video compare to average living expenses in D.C. for five months. How much on lodging and meals would be expected?
12k for the Month? Let's see... First Class ticket to DC is about half that... Oh wait, and downtown DC hotels are upwards of 500+ a night... Even if they had a lowly intern track and submit receipts I wouldn't expect these numbers to go down.
@@GoodKnight5252 Excellent point, and something I should edit into the original post. Standards should be for everyone, but scoffing at the price point feels out of touch.
And this is why they should not be allowed to legislate their own financial limits and requirements. Doesn't matter which party, they're gonna abuse it.
22k in 5 months? Yeah.... something isnt right. This is outside their other sources of reimbursement.... this is for when those other instances dont apply I guess
Using the honor system for politicians is certainly a choice
Yeah an interesting one to say the least
they get to make the system. Like, they decide of someone gets kicked out of congress.
@@jonathanwessner3456most of them should kick themselves out of congress tbh 😂
Wonder who made that choice
Definitely one of the choices of all time
And yet people need to fill out endless forms for assistance just to not starve.
I’ve been paying back Social Security for years because of an error on their end. Had I been able to hire a lawyer I’m sure they would’ve dropped it, but my benefit amount is so tiny, I couldn’t afford to fight it. The system preys on low income elderly and disabled Americans
THIS
@@01SaltyWitch It is intentional. They build the safety net programs to be poverty traps.
@@01SaltyWitch I feel you. That really sucks.
Factssss
Politicians have no honor
Read this in the voice of Michael Dorn, aka Worf
Even Harris?
@@Shawblade Yes. She's the clear option for the US, but you can't trust a snake not to bite you.
Posturing viper or enticing boa constrictor: pick one.
Not an ounce of
@@Shawbladeespecially Harris tbh, anyone remember how she was attacking biden as a racist before she was made his VP? honor means nothing to power
The honor system? Lmao. The US government is just laughing at taxpayers at this point. Reforms are badly needed.
You have a constitutional right/duty to overthrow an unfair government.
I am not under your constitution FYI (for the CIA)
@@Direblade11"Sounds like our jurisdiction' -- CIA probably
@@Direblade11Where is that stated
@@superbotnotabot I'm not an expert on your law, but Abraham Lincoln famously stated in some early legal sense that it is your right to fight against a government that doesn't work in x/y way.
Reminder that most regulations are oft only written in blood. :)
Honor????!!! Politicians????
In this economy?!?
Basing the release of public money on the honour system is a euphemism for embezzlement
Weird how the honor systems are used for people making laws and enforceing them but not the one having to live them.
Any government, no matter how good-meaning they are, absolutely need to be kept in check. And let's not kid ourselves. With American politicians, the law is more of a suggestion than a code.
No receipts no refunds. A matter of fact you need to pay for your own food
I am a retired civil servant. Unless we were traveling overnight, we had to buy our own food.
Any honor system for politicians is a joke. Make them submit receipts. Those with honor don't mind doing so. I am a retired civil servant, and I had to submit receipts, including the crappy Denny's lunch I had while traveling for business.
This is the most infuriating and insane thing I have seen in a while. They’re already top 1%ers. And we pay for their 5-star meals without receipts??
Tbf that number's about 5.5k per rep, which when accounting for most of them having to travel far to DC and pay for accomodations with those funds doesn't sound too outrageous. Not to say that more oversight would be a bad thing, but if one wants to get outraged it's much better to look at campaign funding/super PACs and reps' stock portfolios.
@@user-kb8rc5vq2i Maybe I should’ve been more clear. The receipts are not the problem. 50 MILLION Americans were food insecure last year.
We already pay these people a salary, foot the bill for security, etc. They shouldn’t get a single meal comped on our dime until our children are fed, at the very least.
@@charliekowittmusic I think this is a separate issue, and frankly mixing them together doesn't really do much to help anything.
Solving food insecurity requires a mixture of policies, like re-expanding welfare eligibility, and introduce a more graded system where people aren't kicked off completely the second they make a single cent above some arbitrary cutoff-point, but where there's multiple levels instead. This combined with better support for small scale and local farmers (not big agri-business), programs for building affordable (and social) housing, legislation to help enable unionization and crack down on union-busting and more. Getting lost on reps compensation for job-related expenses is like missing the billion-dollar forest for the thousand-dollar trees.
That said It's always galling to witness this kind of inequality, and I think a better and more cost-effective solution would be for the federal government to provide some form of accommodation for reps that have to travel far, like some big housing estates for reps with reasonably sized studio apartments to use when they're in session. I think that would eliminate the biggest expenses while easing a little of the price pressure on the local housing market.
University clubs have to show receipts for reimbursement. The government should be the same. Wth.
ah, yes, honor system
house lawmakers are notoriously honorable
Honor System? Seriously???? 😂
Almost as much as Dave expensed for THE BULLETIN BOARD
The bulletin board is priceless.
She started with You expense at least 2.5 million dollars, I immediately went "WHAT DID DAVE DID?!"
I love when Democrat and Republican politicians can get together and be equally dishonorable. God bless America
Guess it's time to bring back that debilitated chicken out again
I want to know who looked at congress and said, "y'know what, we can trust these people to tell us what they're spending our money on"
Congress passes all laws and legislation. Take a guess
They looked at themselves in the mirror and said, "You know what, we can trust these people to tell us what they're spending our money on."
And then they had a good laugh as they passed this bill.
Keep in mind these people make six figures before 'campaign donations'
Rule’s for thee but not for me - a politician probably
"Congress investigated themselves and found no wrongdoing" typa shit here
Yeah, look up the British Parliamentary expences scandal to see how trustworthy politicians are on expenses.
Two words.
Duck. Island.
Actual insanity.. I’m gonna run for local office just to spend tax payers money until I get caught 🤡😂
"RECEIPTS!....PROOF!!" lol that was funny 😂....great video and informative 😊
I can’t even expense pencils at work without a receipt.
Crazy how the people with the power decided they'd give themselves power
Washington Post be snitchin
🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡
On god they do🙏
as they should loool
The pen hand movement from her is unmatched 💅
With how much a politician gets paid lathey should not be allowed to expense anything
Meanwhile have to use DTS and I have to justify my measly meal and incidental rate.
The "honor system" is just that to us, but for most politicians it's just the "system"
Army has to use DTS. The politicians get the "honor" system. Oh, to be old and careless.
And public sector workers (bureaucrats, technocrats) are limited to GSA rates. Why doesn’t that apply to elected officials?
yeah this has GOTTA go
Considering most politicians are just about the most untrustworthy people you can meet no matter where in the world you are, allowing them any kind of honour system is plain ludicrous - and I'd bet they're the ones who decided they get to use an honour system.
The aggressive fluffy pen pointing is life. I need more of this. I no longer wish to consume my news without fluffy pens. I need one now
Notice that no matter what party, corruption ran rampant.
Tax payers reimbursing politicians for travel expenses???
Yeah no. They make money, a lot more than us thanks to insider trading. They don’t deserve a cent from us.
And relying on some kind of “Honor System” is by far the funniest thing I’ve heard all day!
Meanwhile, my job is chasing people down for a receipt for a single bottle of water...
WTF...Please get rid of this BS
So they get an honor system to get what? Tax cuts or something that keeps more money in their pockets. They get too many loopholes while average people are hunted down by the irs for being 10 dollars off or not putting their middle initial on the form.
Seriously, we could deal with so much of our debt if corporations and politicians didn't get away with so much financial stuff. Not to mention repeatedly misplacing funds or 15+ other things eating up taxes.
You can’t even use the honor system for Halloween candy anymore. How the hell is this even a thing?!? 🤦♂️🤨
I'm glad there's no oversight for what is a giant pile of money sitting within someone's reach.
Every single member of the government needs audited
It's like when we let politicians decide their salary & benefits for themselves they might take advantage of taxpayers
And they are in charge of the budget? Effin hell
"RECEIPTS! PROOF!"
"Banana!"
I think I got my memes mixed up
Corruption like this makes it hard to believe good people are in the house. And if there are good people there; they're probably not Republicans
Honor system is dead for politicians. We tried it with the supreme court, and look at the mess we have now. FULL TRANSPARENCY OR NOTHING AT ALL.
It makes sense. After all, it is not like a high end hotel is going to bother giving you a receipt that could take a staffer (not even the representative themselves) only minutes to scan into database, right? Right?....
It really all comes down to how much staffing you have, and that comes down to what kind of projects you are working on. I think under $20k is reasonable. Costs like over 10x that for one missile.
The top spender is estimated to be worth $46M. We should cap this program to only congresspeople worth less than (idk $5M. Pick a number I don't care)
Thanks for sharing this information!
Using the honor system for a political class that has no concept of honor or accountability is wild. We need to start tightening the leashes on these corrupt politicians.
All other government employees have to log their expenses. CRAZY that representatives think they don't have to...
Seriously? Just get your secretaries to fill out the travel expenses report.
At least it’s coming from public funds and not corrupt sources.
Politicians and an honor system? That's like expecting them to fly under their own power.
Weird how the lawmakers NEVER take a cut to their own pay...or expense reports
Honor and politicians are like two of the same magnet. Totally repel each other
The only system I would be inclined to accept is an enforced IOU.
And nobody’s talking about the bulletin board that your colleague JD Vance expensed! That’s the real scandal here.
Get rid of this. The honors system for those with no honor is illegal.
My goodness, imagine how many bulletin boards you can expense instead of paying for politicians' expensive dinners.
All their expenses should require prior approval on physical paper by the DoT and/or IRS.
Literally no private company on earth would use the honor system for reimbursements, why is this a thing
Politicians should have to apply for assistance if they want to use taxpayer money on themselves and should be rejected because they make too much
Unbelievable. Believably unbelievable.
going TDY in the Air Force, you are given a flat daily Meals & Incidental Expenses per diem based on the average cost for the area. I guess it was deemed too fussy to gather receipts for every instance of food or drink. The individual can then potentially find meals that add up to be less expensive than the daily stipend and pocket the difference, but every airman’s total reimbursement for M&IE would look the same at the end of the trip, being that same flat rate.
So that’s also an honor system in a way, but at least the payout is capped so no one can be reimbursed over a maximum. It seems to me that that would be preferable and simpler to track than just letting politicians claim whatever.
Ah yes, the most honorable people.... Politicians...
I half expected this to be another corkboard reference
The amount of paperwork I've filed for reimbursements with my work probably out weighs more than what some people will ever do in their entire life.
And I was just a touring performer, and yet I was held to a higher standard than sitting Congress people.
As the saying goes, there is no honor amongst thieves.
Who ever thought for a second you could use the honor system with politicians?
There has to be a system put in place other than re-election.
Audit Congress
When I make $15000 a year while in college and I’m pay for their lunch when I can’t afford to eat before class is wild.
Politicians are known for being trustworthy, so the honor system should be good enough. For sure
Did they really expect politicians to have a sense or honor.
The HONOR system???Honestly WTF
Ya that’s an intentional loophole that desperately needs to be plugged.
If a system can be abused, it will be abused.
Every
Single
Time
So they're doing this - but we can't get student loan breaks
"The House" and "Honor Sytem" DO NOT BELONG TOGETHER
They shouldn’t have to travel to dc just do zooms. No travel, no expenses needed
Fair point. Devil's advocate: do you trust zoom with your representative's vote? Hypothetically, there are a lot of ways that a national politician's work could be corrupted via bad actors interfering electronically. This doesn't mean it's a hopeless idea, but we might need to prepare some safeguards, or I might need to realize how wrong I am if I am.
@@Hanniah--Heart thst is also a very good point. But you have to admit with the technology we have today such remote meetings are possible and honestly them wasting the taxpayer money like this is ludicrous. They aren’t diplomats, just people from different states of this nation. Zoom can definitely be compromised I agree, but they should be finding ways to make such sessions possible and have ways to keep everything uncompromised. The fact that this reimbursement is honor based and not even receipt based is just the start of things that need to change
@@Pikaholmes221b Em, have you actually broken those mumbers dowm? On the high end of the food expenses in the video, it's less than $10/meal and the lodging is something like $2,600/month on rent for two places that, under current design, they functionally are required to have --one in their home state... That they effectively ARE diplomats of according to the constitution, and one in DC where they meet not just with other congressmembers and committees, but entire bodies of staff working on bill writing and more and whicb ia a capital city of a nation known for price hiking rent in major cities. Hypothetically underpinning some of that with virtual meetings could hypothetically reduce these expenses even further, but they're pretty dang reasonable given the current system.
@@Hanniah--Heart agreed but if the technology to make these sessions both cost effective and maybe efficient, then they should be trying to do it. While being in person is often the best way to get things done, especially when it concerns the entire nation, the fact of the matter is this travel often squander something more valuable than money, time. If they are able to instantaneously meet for these meetings I’d think that will be worth it. Sometimes things are in a deadlock and sessions are suspended, they have to travel back and forth which wastes valuable time. What i am saying is definitely ain’t perfect, and i know very little about politics and these systems, all i can hope for is that things get done, and the money is well spent. While conceptually I understand they can be considered diplomats in a way by definition they aren’t as a diplomat is someone who furthers their nation’s interests abroad and honestly they shouldn’t really have to travel, since it often feels like they are wasting time, all i want is for people to get things done effectively. Though reimbursement on an honor system is absolutely ludicrous, transparency is key in these types of things, if they want that reimbursement they need to bring receipts.
Uhh... as a taxpayer, I'd like a little more transparency than the honors system.
I think I could find a vegan poaching rhinos in Antarctica before a US Congress person upholding the honor system.
Nothing in the us government should run in the honor system
This is ridiculous...
The IRS wants to know what time a took a dump 15 yrs ago down to the second, but members of the government can hand in a crayon drawing saying “trust me bro” yo auditors
Oh the irs wants to know about the politicians too… it’s just that when the irs says “plz gib money so I can look into it” they go haha nope
These may just be the ones that always report it
Need receipts to at the VERY least to know that the money is being spent on what it's meant to be spent on. I'm also curious how those expenses shown in the video compare to average living expenses in D.C. for five months. How much on lodging and meals would be expected?
Fine, then don't expect tax payers to show their receipts for their taxes - we tax payers want to be on the honor system too.
This feels like a blatant infringement of the 27th amendment. They can't give themselves raises so they just have an honor system expense report. SHAM
Honor in The House.😅🤣😂 We how well the Honor System worked with SCOTUS.
12k for the Month? Let's see...
First Class ticket to DC is about half that...
Oh wait, and downtown DC hotels are upwards of 500+ a night...
Even if they had a lowly intern track and submit receipts I wouldn't expect these numbers to go down.
Night be true but i still don't get why not require receipts like the rest of us? Or can i also go on the honor system?
@@GoodKnight5252 Excellent point, and something I should edit into the original post. Standards should be for everyone, but scoffing at the price point feels out of touch.
And this is why they should not be allowed to legislate their own financial limits and requirements.
Doesn't matter which party, they're gonna abuse it.
22k in 5 months?
Yeah.... something isnt right. This is outside their other sources of reimbursement.... this is for when those other instances dont apply I guess
THE HONOR SYSTEM?! IN WASHINGTON?! WITH POLITICIANS?!
Who was controlling the House when this got put in place?
Does it matter? It was almost certainly heavily supported on both sides
Letting politicians use the *Honor System* is a joke
Politicians love the honer system