Wasteful spending: Congress pays clergy $66,000/hour to pray

[yortsed snacilbuper]

Last edited Fri Nov 4, 2016, 01:54 AM - Edit history (2)

The Senate Chaplain’s Office has a budget of $436,886 this year. The House Chaplain’s budget is similar, but it was not a line item—it was lumped in with $24,980,898 for the “salaries and expenses of the Office of the Clerk, including the positions of the Chaplain and the Historian.” However, the Senate chaplain has three staffers—a director of communications, a chief of staff, and an assistant—while the House Chaplain only has two staffers—an assistant and a liaison. The salaries alone for the three in the House chaplain’s office top $345,000 according to InsideGov. Add expenses and Congress is spending $800,000 every year on its opening prayers.

If you do that math for 2011 (the chaplain gave 104 prayers that year), the House chaplain’s salary works out to $1,659 per prayer or, if the prayers average about 90 seconds, a salary of $66,346 an hour. (The House chaplain gave 104 prayers that year: 156 minutes or 2.6 hours.)

That’s more than 9,000 times greater than the federal minimum wage and more than the combined hourly wage for the CEOs of Starbucks, Macys and Wal-mart. In fact, it’s more than triple those CEOs’ combined hourl

I don't blame these jokers for smiling.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/freethoughtnow/wasteful-spending-congress-pays-clergy-66000hour-to-pray/

[Moonwalk]

1. I'll do it for half that!

I'd be happy to save the government $400,000 on opening prayers. I'm sure I can find several to invoke for all occasions. And just to add, I'll only need one assistant. When can I start?