Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Manzullo Finally Gets Credit

One of the issues that Don Manzullo attacked his one-term Democratic Party opponent on in 1992 was spending taxpayer dollars to promote himself.

Congressmen are low profile folks in huge metropolitan areas. They don’t get their names in the paper much or on TV unless they are leaders like Denny Hastert was and Rahm Emmanuel is.

So, most congressmen take advantage of the incumbent protection program known as “franking.”

It gives them free postage.

Just affix your signature to an envelope, stick in the post office and it gets delivered free.

Your name appears in every mailbox in your district and you don’t even have to address it.

Associated Press’ former Springfield buy, Dennis Conrad did the research on who did how much franking this year for a Sunday article.

Tucked away in the bottom is this paragraph:

Rockford GOP Rep. Donald Manzullo has never spent money on mass mailings during a 14-yea congressional career. He has returned more than $1.1 million in unused office allowances, spokesman Rich Carter said.
And in the Sun-Times version, Manzullo $1.1 million even rated a sub-headline, as you can see here.

"(Cook County U.S. Rep. Daniel) Lipinski acknowledged that some mailings are difficult to differentiate from advertising, and said he understands how some people may view them as propaganda," the article said.

Peoria’s Republican Ray LaHood, whose district is dominated by Peoria media, making him well-known, told AP that he considers the mass mailings “self-promotion.”

Self-obvious, it would seem to me.

First posted on McHenry County Blog.

3 comments:

Anonymous,  5:04 PM  

Manzullo should give his entire salary back considering the job he does as Congressman. Also, are you trying to imply he lives in an urban district? Have you looked at the map?

Anonymous,  7:36 PM  

anonymous, you're an idiot. I am sure there are plenty of Congressmen you can disagree with, but to say they don't deserve their salary is ridiculous. I guess you are probably one of those who think Congressmen work as hard as college professors. After all, if they are not on the House floor, they are not work. Right? Or better yet, think only millionaires should be in Congress.

Anonymous,  3:21 PM  

There are plenty of Congressman who earn their pay. Manzullo isn't one of them.

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