# Constitutional Maximum for the House

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/constitutional-maximum-for-the-house/795035>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [August 29, 2017, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/constitutional-maximum-for-the-house/795035 "2017-08-29T15:59:06Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 12

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**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\
**Post date:** [August 29, 2017, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/constitutional-maximum-for-the-house/795035/12 "2017-08-29T16:54:40Z")

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According to the link below, each Congressional office gets between $1 and 2 million for their office budget. If we average that at $1.5 million, then that’s about 435\*1.5 = $652 million that goes to House office budgets (not including salaries for the Reps themselves). Let’s say we increased the House tenfold, to about 4000 members – with the same budget for staff – $652 million / 4000 = $163K per office. That’s enough for, say, two mid-income (~$60K) staffers plus travel expenses, perhaps.

> **[How much does it cost to run a congressional office?](https://lasvegassun.com/news/2013/mar/13/how-much-does-it-cost-run-congressional-office/)**
>
> Last week, Sen. Dean Heller penned a letter to the heads of the Senate Rules and Administration committee, calling for an audit of the U.S. Senate to ferret out “areas in which we can eliminate wasteful spending.”

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