An open Letter to Congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter - Granite Grok

An open Letter to Congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter

ROBERT M. BESTANI

Congresswoman Carol Shea Porter
1330 Longworth HOB
Washington, DC 20515

July 24, 2009

Dear Congresswoman Shea Porter:

At a time when our economy is in crisis and both families and businesses around the country are struggling to keep their expenses to a minimum, we should expect nothing less from our government. Clearly, government draws its revenues from taxes on the private sector at large and because of reckless spending over the years, our government is now very deeply in debt to the rest of the world. The puts even more pressure on our fellow citizens at a time when they can least bear it. As such, we should expect that our government should be even more cautious than usual with its spending.

As a citizen and as one of your constituents, I was most distressed to read in the press that your office recently paid a political consultant named Julia Piscitelli $17,000 using taxpayer funded office budget. To the best of my knowledge, such payments for political services are explicitly against the rules of the U.S. House of Representatives.

It was also reported that these payments were used to generate 677,070 separate, full color, glossy pieces of mail. Reportedly, the postage cost alone for these mailings totaled $149,517. One can only imagine what the printing cost was. In the age of the internet this seems most odd.

Beyond this, I read that your office also paid thousands of dollars in hotel bills for your chief of staff Mike Brown to come to the 1st Congressional district to work on your re-election campaign last October. Because of his seniority, it is hard to believe that Mr. Brown was in New Hampshire to undertake constituent services. Again, to the best of my knowledge, such expense payments for political services are explicitly against the rules of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Furthermore, there are reports that your staffers were paid bonuses at the very time we are harshly criticizing the banking industry for similar practices.

These reports are most unfortunate and I certainly hope they are untrue. Would you kindly advise me and what the true facts might be? I am making this an open letter in the hope that you can also give comfort the other New Hampshire citizens who may also have heard these unfortunate reports.

In these very hard economic times in New Hampshire, I think your office should be nevertheless be taking the high ground and reimbursing the government, if for nothing else, the sake of appearances.

                                Sincerely,

                                Bob Bestani

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