Republican Representatives Matt Gaetz and Nancy Mace are living high on the hog thanks to a shadowy reimbursement program for House lawmakers passed last year, according to records released by the House and reviewed by The Washington Post .
Mace submitted $19,395 in reimbursement claims from the program last year—and according to two former staffers who spoke with the Post , Mace directed her staff to find the maximum reimbursement she could get, regardless of her actual expenses. Her staff told her she couldn’t conceivably net more than $1,726 in monthly reimbursements, but Mace requested reimbursements at an average of over $2,000 a month anyway.
Meanwhile, one of the program’s top spenders, Representative Matt Gaetz reimbursed himself more than $10,000 for food last year— double the household average—and nearly $30,000 for lodging.* According to The Washington Post , Gaetz got reimbursed for more than $4,000 for lodging for two months in 2023— twice the average cost of rent in Washington, D.C.—and more than $3,000 for five months.
The reimbursement program, launched in 2023, issued $5.2 million in total reimbursements to more than 300 of the House’s 435 members last year. Intended to reflect private-sector reimbursement for business-related expenses, the program is a stopgap in lieu of the deeply unpopular move of Congress voting to give themselves raises. It provides a per-diem maximum spending on lodging and food as laid out by the General Services Administration, which oversees per diems for federal employees.
According to the GSA’s rate chart , a House lawmaker who spends 100 percent of the year working in Washington, D.C.—with no breaks for holidays, the end of legislative session, or weekends—could conceivably collect a maximum reimbursement of $80,377 for the 2023–2024 fiscal year in just lodging. For that same period and parameters, they could conceivably collect $28,835 in food reimbursements. To be crystal clear: These numbers are unachievable for lawmakers, who take weekends and holidays, who travel to their home states, and take legislative breaks. Gaetz somehow managed to achieve half that impossible expense.
Craig Holman of Public Citizen , a nonprofit government watchdog and public interest lobbying group, harshly criticized the reimbursement plan, pointing out its lack of requiremenet of receipts as a “ridiculous loophole” that opens opportunities for abuse.
“Clearly it becomes very difficult to tell whether or not it’s a legitimate payment and whether it’s proper,” Holman told The Washington Post .
A spokesperson for Gaetz defended his splurges, claiming the lawmaker raked up more costs because he’s just a really hard worker and spent more days than most in Washington working. “In 2023, Rep. Gaetz dedicated significant time to his work on the Weaponization Subcommittee, requiring his presence to be in Washington, D.C., on days often when there were no votes, which incurred additional reimbursement expenses to conduct depositions,” the spokesperson told The Washington Post.
While lawmakers aren’t required to provide receipts, running afoul of the rules to fleece the system could result in corruption charges. For lawmakers endorsing a felon for president, that’s practically a badge of honor.
* An earlier version of this article said that Representative Matt Gaetz was the reimbursement program’s top spender for 2023. That was based on outdated data reviewed by the Post , which has since updated its article. The program’s top spender was Representative Jack Bergman, another Republican.
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