Small government lover and fiscally conservative-minded Pete Kinder says his $86,000 just isn't enough.
Fiscally conservative (cough, cough) Missouri Lt. Governor Pete
"Pantless Party Lovin'" Kinder has made a
special plea for a new allowance:
He receives an annual salary of about $86,000. But Kinder says he's experienced "gradual impoverishment" during his decade in office.
His salary is less than other statewide executive officials, but well more than the $36,000 that legislators receive.
One of the lieutenant governor's duties is to preside over the Senate. Kinder wants to receive the same allowance that legislators get, which is $103 a day. He's seeking a per diem whenever he's in Jefferson City, not just when the Legislature meets.
Kinder has a long history of
sticking taxpayers with the bill:
The state's No. 2 official, who has a home in Cape Girardeau and an office in Jefferson City, has grown accustomed to staying at luxury hotels in St. Louis - and letting taxpayers pick up the tab.
Since 2006, Kinder has billed the state for an average of more than two months per year at hotels in the St. Louis area.
Even with a discounted government rate, Kinder has charged taxpayers a total of $35,050 for at least 329 nights at hotels in St. Louis and St. Louis County during that time period. That includes 236 nights at the Chase and 42 nights at the downtown Four Seasons, his most frequented hotels.
The price tag doesn't include the cost of meals on those trips or the hotel and meal cost for dozens of trips elsewhere in the state that Kinder has taken at taxpayer expense.
Embarrassed by the attention those stories received in 2011, Kinder
eventually repaid $35,000 of those travel expenses.
Pete Kinder is a Tea Party favorite, most recently making the news for his dog-whistle comments on the protests in Ferguson:
“That’s one of the great advances of Anglo-American civilization, is that that we do not have politicized trials. We let the justice system work it out.”
No word on how Missouri Tea Party leaders feel about Pete Kinder's latest scheme to bilk taxpayers.