Don’t Let ‘em Bank on Perks

Some of our employees are overstepping their positions again. I mean the people we hire to run our government. They must believe that they weren’t elected but anointed.

Right now, this seems particularly, if not exclusively, a congressional problem. Two-thirds of the House of Representatives have regularly overdrawn their accounts at the little House bank, including almost half of California’s representatives. Lord knows how many were cashing checks illegally at the House post office.

While everyone debates whether it was really illegal, immoral or unexpected, the congressmen are rushing to apologize and to minimize the offense. They weren’t stealing, they put it back, it wasn’t much, everybody bounces checks.

William Dannemeyer (27 bad checks) said his wife handled the checkbook; Robert Dornan (1) spent it on a statue of the Virgin; Duncan Hunter (407, totaling $129,000) gave $145 a month to a needy students fund. Barbara Boxer (87) said voters were more concerned about “real issues,” although she conceded that it was “a wart” on her reputation.

Phooey. This is no wart but a cancer. The issue isn’t bounced checks, cashed checks or checks at all. It’s privilege--not abuse of privilege but privilege of any kind.

It’s not typically Democrat, as some say, or purely congressional, as it might seem. It’s trips to Disney World and fine watering spots for Los Angeles County officials. It’s a President’s fake “residence” in a Houston hotel. It’s the royal treatment that makes government officials act like royalty.

We’re the employers. Obviously we weren’t clear on what we expect from our workers and how much we’ll pay.

A popular defense is that this wasn’t really a bank. Certainly it was a murky little financial institution, even by today’s standards. For decades it existed just for the convenience of the House (whatever the Senate had hasn’t come out yet), dispensing free checks and, in essence, free cash advances that sometimes became free long-term loans.

It wasn’t a bank. It was a pot.

Indeed, that was the legislators’ understanding. Speaker Tom Foley (D-Wash.) called it a “check-writing cooperative.” Many members of Congress protested that they were operating within the rules of the bank--clearly not a normal bank’s rules.

Not that many seem to have understood the rules of a normal bank. They drew a big distinction between bounced checks and overdrafts (when a bank covers the bad check), though both involve a customer writing checks for money he doesn’t have. They were unashamed of their dependence on overdraft protection, even proud: “None of those checks bounced,” Hunter said.

They expected voters to be understanding because everybody bounces checks. Actually, everybody doesn’t. According to the American Bankers Assn., only three-fourths of 1% of the 50 billion checks written yearly bounce. A third of our banks don’t even offer overdraft protection.

Many even blamed the little bank for their troubles. Unlike normal banks, it sent no notification of being overdrawn, so the congressmen couldn’t keep track of their money.

Odd that they themselves couldn’t keep track like the rest of us do. They must know how, since they keep track of our money. And if not, should they be making judgments about banking practices when they’re so isolated from the experience?

The problem is their detachment from reality--not because this wasn’t a normal bank but because congressmen aren’t normal customers. This was business as usual: They enjoyed a particular entitlement and never questioned it. No one doubts that they’re sincerely surprised at the flap.

Many still believe that it’s a question of money, protesting that their own case involved very little (less than $9,000, said one) or very few checks. Dannemeyer believes that he made things better by sending the House $405--$15 for each of his 27 checks, or what normal banks might charge.

All obviously assumed that they were special people and special arrangements were their due. This is privilege, and no one seems sure of the proper attitude toward it.

The public sometimes finds it attractive, sometimes intolerable. It was considered charming that John F. Kennedy never carried cash and couldn’t even buy his own ice cream cone. It was less charming that Leona Helmsley, charged with tax evasion, believed that adherence to tax law was for “the little people.” Voters are even divided in their view of this congressional “Rubbergate.”

If government employees just don’t get it, maybe it’s because we don’t give it well. Representative is a pretty good job, pretty well-compensated, and we can choose who gets it. Why are we asking what was the harm in this bank, what did it actually cost taxpayers?

If we’re against privilege, there’s a high cost in letting it pass. Money’s the least of it.