Rep. Jack Kingston’s Free Lunch Hypocrisy

Meet the new poster boy for Republican “entitlement for me but not for thee”: Congressman Jack Kingston.

Weeks after Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) made headlines for suggesting low-income students sweep cafeteria floors to learn there’s “no such thing as free lunch,” Savannah TV station WSAV 3 looked at the “free lunches” Kingston himself has received as a member of Congress.

There’s no precise way to count the number of lunches Kingston has enjoyed on taxpayer dollars, but the station took a look at expense reports and disclosures to uncover staggering figures from the congressman’s three years in office.

According to the station’s investigation, Kingston and his staff have expensed $4,182 worth of “meals for business purposes,” and recorded $4,289.33 in free meals from third-party interest groups, including the Congressional Institute and the Georgia Bankers Association.

As a member of the House Appropriations Committee, Kingston has traveled to four continents, racking up $24,313 in per diem allowances. While the allowances were allotted for more than just lunch money, midday meals were included.

By: dave-dr-gonzo

David Hirsch, a.k.a. Dave "Doctor" Gonzo*, is a renegade record producer, video producer, writer, reformed corporate shill, and still-registered lobbyist for non-one-percenter performing artists and musicians. He lives in a heavily fortified compound in one of Manhattan's less trendy neighborhoods.

* Hirsch is the third person to use the pseudonym, a not-so-veiled tribute to journalist and author Hunter S. Thompson, with the permission of his predecessors Gene Gaudette of American Politics Journal (currently webmaster and chief bottlewasher at Liberaland) and Stephen Meese at Smashmouth Politics.