From: tdsmith@oasys.dt.navy.mil (Timothy Smith)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.dan-quayle
Subject: Re: golf trips
Date: 12 Apr 92 21:42:31 GMT
Reply-To: tdsmith@oasys.dt.navy.mil (Timothy Smith)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Carderock Division, NSWC, Bethesda, MD

In alt.fan.dan-quayle, krueger@galileo.uucp (Ted Krueger) writes:
>In article <1992Apr9.234240.10899@husc3.harvard.edu> koumis@husc4.harvard.edu (
>Anthony Koumis) writes:
>>
>>Rubbergate didnt actually cost the taxpayers anything.
>
>What?  Who do you think pays the salaries of the people who
>worked in that bank? 

    Ok, the "bank" cost taxpayers $700K/year to administer.  The overdraft
protection called "rubbergate" didn't add to that cost.

>Don't you know that the Sergant At Arms
>regularly withdrew funds from a real Washington bank in order
>to cover House Bank overdrafts?  Who pays for the costs of
>running the account at that other Washington bank? 

    Where do you get your facts?  The N.Y. Post or Rush Limbaugh? (sp?)
My guess is that the house bank acted as a credit union, keeping an account
at a local bank to stay plugged into the banking system.  Routine. My
credit union does this.
    I'll bet the account (if there was one) at the local bank paid interest
on positive balances.  I'll also bet that when you subtract off the
interest on short term loans from the interest paid for positive balances
the house "bank" came out ahead.

>Who pays
>the salaries of the Congressmen? 

    WHAT?  Does YOUR paycheck still belong to your employer?

>What happened to the taxes
>that the Congressmen are supposed to pay on income of this
>type?

    What income? All of the overdrafts have been covered.

>Perhaps you haven't heard that house members bounced checks
>and loaned that money to their re-election campaign funds
>at 16% interest.

    Point 1: If the checks bounced what money are you talking about?

    Point 2: Sources?  I have heard talk show hosts speculate on this
subject, but I am not aware of any reports on the matter. There will 
be an investigation into potential campaign financing violations, but 
that investigation hasn't even started yet.

    Point 3: We don't even know how much money was borrowed!  All we
have heard is the "face value of the checks."  
   If I have $9990.00 in my account, and I deposit a check for $5000.00, 
then write a check for $10,000.00 the next day then I should have $4990.00 
in my account. Right?
    So why do I hear Rush Limbaugh (sp?) on the radio telling my 
constituents that I "bounced a check for $10,000?" 
    By my records I'm ok, and by the banks records I MAY have borrowed 
$10.00 until my check for $5000.00 clears.  For this I am about to lose
my job.  
    For this I CANNOT DO MY REAL JOB FOR TWO WEEKS because I have to
handle the feeding frenzy of media hacks who make ten or twenty times
as much as I do.  If the taxpayers lost anything with "rubbergate" it
was loss of effective legislation.

>Anthony, the main reason why people are upset over rubbergate
>is that it is just another example of congress making one set
>of laws for the country to live by and another set of rules
>for themselves.  For example: are you aware that Affirmative
>Action laws do not apply to Congress.  Boy, what fairness.

    Ok, perceptive observation.  The people are pissed.
    Are you aware that Congress has a seperate set of regulations that
somewhat cover affirmative action?  They are not laws, but they do exist
in the ethics rules congress keeps for itself. (perhaps some constitutional
lawyer can step in and clarify this)
    Have you ever heard of "seperation of powers?"  That principal that
there be three branches of government so that a system of checks and
balances is enforced?  Think back to civics class...it's one of the 
founding principals of our government.
    Congress routinely exempts itself from general laws, then writes
a parallel rule specifically for itself.  Why?  Because the executive
branch is responsible for enforcing laws.  Giving the executive branch 
law enforcement responsibility over the legislative branch would effectively 
cancel the seperation of powers.  At any time the executive branch could 
threaten to tie up any particular member of congress in long and costly 
litigation.  Congress would become like the old Soviet parlament; all 
votes would be unanimous.  The president would effectively become king.
    When was the last time you let the other team supply the referees?
Rush Limbaugh thinks our government ought to work that way. Boy what 
fairness!

>Ted

OBDQ:  If air force 2 costs $26k to operate, then 27 hours of air time
equals the operating cost of the (now defunct) house bank.  AF1 costs
$50K per hour, so 14 hours of GHWB airtime costs the taxpayers the same
as the entire "bank" budget for a year. (It's about 14 hours one way
to Japan.)

OBDQ: Has anyone asked how much it cost for DQ to have a putting green
installed at the Veep residence? (At taxpayer expense.)  Or how much
the traditional new set of china costs at the White house?
   DQ and GHWB live in glass houses.  They ought to be careful with 
those stones in an election year.

Tim Smith