On Monday, Rep. Andy Harris hosted an emergency preparedness meeting in Berlin. He advertised this meeting by sending out 60,000 self-serving postcards.
Harris told us these cost 35 cents each. That's a total of $21,000. Only about 30-35 people attended.
That means taxpayers spent about $650 to get each person to the meeting. A notice in the newspaper would not have cost anything, but Harris wouldn't have gotten his free election-year advertising.
Congressional franking --free mail --has cost taxpayers more than $2 billion total. Legislative efforts this year to reduce franking by 10 percent failed, thanks to Republican opposition, including Harris.
Harris' $21,000 expenditure on this mailing shows what a hypocrite he is. He doesn't deserve a second term in Congress.
Thomas Lilly
DelMarVa's Premier Source for News, Opinion, Analysis, and Human Interest Contact Publisher Joe Albero at alberobutzo@wmconnect.com or 410-430-5349
All he cares about is looking after Dr's pay.
ReplyDeleteHe would have spent a lot on a newspaper ad that maybe 3 people would have seen-- nobody reads the paper anymore except the old folks with such an established habit of doing it that they can't live without it, and most of them wouldn't come anyway.
ReplyDeleteHe did OK. There are a lot worse examples of 'franking' abuse-- a certain fellow named Gilcrist comes to my mind.