Home | Newsletter | Advertise
loading...

Jason Chaffetz Proposes $2,500 Housing Stipend For Members of Congress

  • Jun 27th 2017

by Nena Perry-Brown

Are DC’s runaway housing prices even too expensive for our nation’s legislators?

In advance of his resignation from Congress this Friday, Representative Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) suggested during an interview with The Hill that members of Congress should receive a monthly housing stipend of $2,500 in order to afford a place to live in DC.

Despite his $174,000 annual salary, Chaffetz and other members of Congress sleep on cots in their offices on the Hill and fly back home several times every month. “Washington, DC is one of the most expensive places in the world,” Chaffetz told The Hill. “I think a $2,500 housing allowance would be appropriate and a real help to have at least a decent quality of life in Washington if you’re going to expect people to spend hundreds of nights a year here.”

The Hill calculated that a $2,500 monthly stipend would cost taxpayers $33,000 per legislator, or approximately $16 million annually for all 535 members of Congress.

Throughout his tenure, Chaffetz was known for meddling in the District’s affairs and having strong opinions about local legislation; however, none of that interference extended to the city’s costly housing market. Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) has not yet commented on this idea.

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/jason_chaffetz_proposes_2500_housing_stipend_for_members_of_congress/12735.

DC Real Estate Guides

Short guides to navigating the DC-area real estate market

We've collected all our helpful guides for buying, selling and renting in and around Washington, DC in one place. Visit guides.urbanturf.com or start browsing below!

First-Timer Primers

Intro guides for first-time home buyers

Red Flags Revealed During a Home Inspection Top 5 Tax Breaks For Homeowners Tax Relief for DC Homeowners
Condo Fee Tutorial What is a Rent Back? 10 Ways To Tell If a Home Renovation is Well Done
Obtaining a Basic Business License For Your Rental What is an Adjustable Rate Mortgage? The Splitting the Rent Formula
How Much Cash Do You Need to Buy a House? Is This Condo Building Financially Healthy? Interest Rates and Mortgage Points
The Scoop on Mortgage Insurance

Unique Spaces

Awesome and unusual real estate from across the DC Metro

The Most Intriguing Loft in DC The R Street Firehouse DC’s One-Room House
Dupont Circle’s Old Frat House To Become Alley Home Best Transition From a Garage To a Home The Roundhouse
Tilden Gardens Restaurant-Turned-Home Hits Market Next Week Logan Circle’s Most Intriguing Garage Frank Lloyd Wright Goes Green in Kensington
Sears Bungalow Gets a Modern Makeover Old Town General Store Becomes Three-Level Home Making the Most of a Skinny House
A Studio 27 Renovation on Capitol Hill Once a Carriage House, Now a Home The Bank that Became a Home
From Pie to Hooch to Heroin to Home The Live-Aboards of Gangplank Marina A Treehouse with Rock Creek Park As A Backyard
Modern Tranquility in Sperryville Saddle Up For Stable Living Throwing a Curve at 550 Square Feet
A Modern Hilltop Retreat Tilden Street Restaurant Becomes Spacious Home Focus on Design: A Vastu Unit at 22 West
The DC Area’s First Net Zero Home A Yankee Goes Green DC’s First Carbon Neutral Home
Eco-Friendly Alley House Off H Street The Gym, The Stables and The Firehouse