The House of Representatives: Are They for the People?

Every year, the House is given a budget and they each get to choose how they spend their money. While they are given a lot of freedom on this annual shopping spree, how they spend the money deeply affects the people of the country, and their spending habits come with a lot of responsibility. There are a variety of different categories in terms of reasoning for spending money for the House’s sake. With that said, I was particularly interested in what they are spending the most money on, and with that money, for what reason(s) are they most frequently spending it for? Not only that, I was also curious to see if those spending habits by the House, or at least the reasoning for it, would change over time. Truthfully, the desire to learn about the House’s spending habits comes from the fact that lots of people believe things in the political realm could be done differently. The job of the House of Representatives is to pass laws to ultimately help out the people of the nation, and therefore the people should be the top priority. While being in office would definitely be a frustrating as well as difficult role to play, it seems like there are ways where they could provide more help than what they are doing in reality.

When you break it down, you realize that the House of Representatives do have a lot of options in terms of what they could spend their money on. While it would make sense that some of it would compensate for themselves, there is still a lot of wealth they could spread around for the greater good of the people. As my curiosity lengthened about the potential powerhouses of categories that the House spends money on, I needed to conduct more research on those said categories and what they are. Fortunately, ProPublica provided a fine amount of House Expenditure Information. The website has a catalog that includes the expenditure data from each quarter of each year from the House representatives. Just as I was interested in what the House is spending their money on, I also wanted to see if there has been a difference in spending patterns over the course of a decade. So naturally, I compared the ‘categories’ of spending (from the House ) in the first quarter of 2012 to the first quarter of 2022.

For reference, this chart is plotting the frequency of times that a House representative has made a payment for that specific reason. As far as the total amount of money, the representatives spent the most on ‘Office Supplies’, ‘Travel’, and ‘Personnel Compensation.’ The results do speak for themselves, and it is no coincidence that these categories all have something in common; all these expenses benefit themselves. After comprehending the data, the ‘personnel compensation’ and the ‘travel’ categories stood out as overly substantial, not to mention a considerable investment in the salaries and benefits of the staff itself. I understand that there is a lot that comes with the job, and therefore ensuring adequate stability for congressional employees is ideal. However, the frequency of spending in these areas honestly raises some questions in terms of prioritization. We as a society are not exactly in a perfect position, so to say we could use the financial help would be a very accurate statement. Due to the terrible circumstances of the COVID-19 virus, one of the many downsides of the pandemic was the tremendously negative impact on student’s education and attention span. If the House were to focus their efforts into that realm and work to find a solution, I think that would go a long way for the entirety of the younger generation. Additionally, it is more difficult than ever to find affordable housing to buy or rent. Once again, a little compensation there would go a long way for a lot of people in this society, especially considering how much they spend on their own office buildings. Taking this all into account, it’s clear that the House could provide a little more economic stability to the people simply by cutting back on the stability they provide themselves.

It seems that the House of Representatives, as reflected in the expenditure data, maybe aren’t truly putting the interests of the people before their own. While some level of spending on personnel compensation, office operations, and travel expenses is going to be inevitable, excessive allocations in these areas may indicate a need for greater accountability in how taxpayer dollars are utilized by those in office. The people working in office do work very hard to make the country the best place possible, and they deserve to be financially compensated and ultimately stable, but the responsibility of the people is something that comes with the job. And with just how much these officials can really impact our lives, it would be encouraging to see a little more effort on their end to look out for us as much as they look out for them.