Just How Expensive is D.C.?

I live in New York but a few times a year, I go to Washington D.C. on business. Though hotel rooms there are expensive, just about everything else in that city is far cheaper than it would be in New York. I'd guess that a $100 dinner for two in New York goes for $60-$70 in D.C. D.C. is a big city and it charges big city prices but if you spend even a few days there, you realize that it is far cheaper than Los Angeles, New York or San Francisco.

Now, we hear from a CBS News National correspondent that because of proposed reforms that will make lobbyist donations to congressional reps more transparent and that might demand a longer period away from the capitol for retiring congress reps who want to become lobbyists that some congressional reps might actions leave their posts behind.

The argument is that D.C. is just too damned expensive to live in without having access to lobbyist money.

Those guys are surely lucky that our capitol isn't in New York, L.A. or San Francisco.

But what about the fact that millions of people live in D.C. at wages far less than a congressional wage, without the perks of campaign donations and free golfing trips to Scotland? How is it that an office worker in D.C. can find a way to live in a house or apartment, feed themselves or start families without lobbyist support while our reps complain that the capitol is too expensive?

The fact is, D.C. is only marginally more expensive than Philadelphia or Chicago. If our correspondent from CBS is right, and she probably is, then our congressional reps are complaining about living in a city that, while expensive, is also successfully inhabited by the types of people that congressional reps are meant to represent.

I guess that means that certain members of congress believe that the day-to-day struggles faced by the average American are unbearable. It's interesting to me that these people support a system that demands more of the average American than they're willing to bear themselves. They must think they're better than the people they represent. That's not healthy.