Ann Kirkpatrick just cast a vote in Congress to raise her own salary, proving once again that she just doesn’t know what it means to put Arizona first.
Earlier today, the House of Representatives voted on a legislative appropriations bill that kept the current pay freeze for members of Congress in place. With her vote against the measure, Kirkpatrick supported a taxpayer-funded pay raise for herself.
Kirkpatrick has a history of abusing her office’s taxpayer-funded budget, putting campaign aides on the government payroll and spending over $100,000 in the last two days of her term on questionable expenses like staff bonuses:
“Kirkpatrick, who lost her seat to Republican Paul Gosar and who already is running to win it back in 2012, spent $105,294.63, some of it on merit bonuses and accrued leave, during the final 48 hours of her single House term, LegiStorm found. A review of Kirkpatrick’s payroll records also indicates that she hired three ex-political aides as congressional staff assistants on Nov. 11, nine days after Gosar beat her at the ballot box. She paid the three former campaign aides a combined total of $22,433.31 through Jan. 2.” (Dan Nowicki, “2 Arizona Democrats Pumped Up Payrolls After Loss,” Arizona Republic, 6/11/16)
Last week, Kirkpatrick told Tucson’s KOLD her constituents are ‘angry’ because ‘they play by the rules and life is not getting better’ and ‘they want to know why.’
[youtube url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waY9r7FMlL8&feature=youtu.be"]
They can start with Kirkpatrick, who has repeatedly put Washington Democrat priorities – and her own bottom line – first, while Arizonans are left to pay the price.
Between her support for Obamacare, the dangerous Iran deal, the stimulus boondoggle, and now a pay raise funded by Arizona families and workers, is it any wonder Kirkpatrick’s constituents are angry and looking for answers?
Unfortunately the answer is a simple one: Ann Kirkpatrick is just another politician who puts herself first and is all too happy to stand with her party over the people she represents.