U.S. Sen. Rand Paul is returning $600,000 to the U.S. Treasury, money he said he saved through frugally operating his Senate office in the past year. “It’s the only budget I control. ... It’s not enough, but it’s a start,” Paul said at a news conference Wednesday near Fourth and Liberty streets in downtown Louisville.
The $600,000, which amounts to about 17 percent of Paul’s $3.5 million office budget, was in addition to about $500,000 he saved two years ago, his first year in the Senate, Paul said.
He said the savings were realized by “watching every purchase,” including keeping close tabs on expenditures for “computers, paper, ink cartridges. Everything we buy.”
He said he also keeps close watch on travel expenditures and noted that, although he frequently flies between Washington and Kentucky, his staff seldom does. He said he also doesn’t pay his staff excessive salaries.
“We are frugal from top to bottom,” Paul said, adding that he believes the savings show he has been true to his campaign pledge to cut federal spending. “It’s not an enormous savings,” he said, but the savings would add up if purse strings were so closely watched throughout government.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell returned more than $1 million this past year, according to spokesman Robert Steurer, who added the Republican has returned taxpayer funds every year he’s been in office.
According to a recent article by Politico, which covers Washington politics, other senators have returned budgeted office operating funds to the Treasury. In 2011, the last year for which figures are available, Sens. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and Richard Shelby, R-Ala., were among those returning money, along with Paul.
Other senators who have returned funds in recent years, Politico said, were Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii; Jim Risch, R-Idaho; Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I.; and Mike Enzi, R-Wyo. Some of those senators returned more than 20 percent of their office budget.
U.S. Rep. John Yarmuth, D-3rd District, donates his congressional salary to charity.
