Duckworth Returns Nearly $200,000 of Her Office Budget to Taxpayers
Press Release
Congresswoman Tammy Duckworth (IL-08) is returning $189,789.80--over 15 percent--of her 2015 office budget to the U.S. Treasury, following through on her promise to lead by example as a good steward of taxpayer money. While many Congresspeople routinely spend their entire annual budget allotment, Duckworth has now returned a total of $369,501.85 of her own. The Congresswoman was also the first Member of Congress to voluntarily reduce her own pay by 8.4%, the same percentage that most discretionary programs were cut, during sequestration--ultimately giving back more than $10,000 of her own salary to help reduce the deficit.
"Working families across the Illinois who are struggling to get by deserve leaders in Washington who they can trust to handle their tax dollars,"said Duckworth. "We shouldn't spend every dollar we have just because it's there--we owe it to the people we represent to make sure each and every penny they give us is put to good use or sent back to them. I'm proud to lead by example and give back almost $200,000 of my office budget, and I hope others in Congress will follow suit."
Since arriving in Congress, Duckworth has consistently advocated for better government practices, increased accountability and reduced waste while working to support the citizens of the Eighth District. She helped introduce the bipartisan Giveback Deficit Reduction Act to codify her practice of giving unspent congressional office funds back to the treasury and ensure all Members of Congress do so.
Additionally, the Congresswoman introduced the bipartisan SERV Act with Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) to protect Veterans and their earned benefits from fraud and abuse, and successfully passed legislation to reduce redundancy in Armed Forces uniforms that the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has estimated will save taxpayers more than $4 billion over the next 5 years. Duckworth is also the author of a bipartisan provision that passed the House which would have improved agency response time to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests from citizens and increased agency accountability in cases when deadlines are missed.
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