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

• June 27, 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 http://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/jason_chaffetz_proposes_2500_housing_stipend_for_members_of_congress/12735