Patrick McIlheran: A Waste Of Tax Payers Dollars

Six months ago, Patrick McIlheran, champion of the tax payers and fighter of government waste, showed his true nature by leaving the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and going to suck at the government teat.  That is, of course, something he has spent years criticizing people for doing.

Bill Christofferson has looked into this, and even though we still don't know exactly what he is supposed to be doing, we do know he's getting paid extremely well for it, whatever it is:

What we do know is that McIlheran has landed in a pretty cushy job at taxpayer expense.

Legistorm, which tracks Congressional salaries, reports that McIlheran was paid $27,213.84 between the time he bellied up to the public trough on June 20 and Sept. 30. That works out to an annual salary of $93,300.

And, of course, there's a government health care plan (horrors!) and lots of other benefits, including both Social Security and a pension. The Congressional Budget Office says benefits add 26% to 50% on top of salaries, depending on age, salary, length of service, and retirement plan. So that's at least another $25,000 from the taxpayers, and probably quite a bit more. But at least he doesn't have to join a union. That must be a relief for a generally anti-government, anti-union, anti-worker, bootstraps kind of guy.

Whooey! $93,000 salary is a lot of money, especially for a guy who doesn't work full time and for a job no one knows what he supposed to be doing.

Well, there is one thing we do know he does do. He sure tweets up a storm about things that have nothing to do with his supposed job.  The funny thing is he never seems to be doing it during the evening, when his off of work.

I'm sure that Citizens for Responsible Government, Badger Blogger and the rest of the usual "watchdogs" will be on this apparent waste of tax payer money in no time.  Then again, maybe not. That would require integrity.