Today I learned, courtesy of the George Santos cluster%*#*, that when congressional candidates file their campaign expenses, they aren't required to provide receipts for individual items below $200.00. So that charmer Santos, of course, had dozens and dozens of items listed that cost exactly $199.99.
Of course!
Ubers, hotel rooms, Target, many dinners at some place called Il Bacco, something from Delta Airlines. It's all obviously B.S.
But what I want to know is, why do candidates get to file without receipts at that high cutoff in the first place? Who else gets to have unsupported expenses that high?
It's not the same thing, but let's compare it to this.
Back in the mid-1980s at some point after Congress enacted tax reform, it was decided that an IRS form 1099 must be issued for any non-employee income of $600 or higher. Of course, you're supposed to declare income below that, but a form is not issued, so we can all imagine that it's not all declared.
That $600 amount in 1985 dollars is only worth about $200 today, because the $600 level has never been changed or indexed to inflation. (If it had been, it would be about $1,600 now.) But freelancers and the people who pay them are doing the paperwork to account for every penny of it.
Candidates, on the other hand, can make up expenses willy-nilly and get reimbursed from their donors, as Santos was. Or in his case, from the money he "loaned" his campaign…wherever that money came from.
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