In early June I seized the opportunity to go and have breakfast with my Senators, the Illinois breakfast is only on Thursdays at 8:30am.
The conference room and the entire Senate office building was quite lavish which if you think about it for a moment isn’t shocking. When I went to the State Department with the International Relations Seminar class, I was struck by how old and simple the décor was in the building. Some of the bathrooms weren’t even as nice as the ones at my high school, and that building hadn’t been updated for fifty years when I went there.
Follow the money. That is how you can understand why the Senate building is extravagant while the State Department is humble in appearance. While studying the constitution one discovers that the Legislative branch is responsible for allotting tax dollars to where they think it is appropriate. For them it is more appropriate to have gorgeous chandeliers in their building, while leaving the State Department building looking simpler than a public high school. Of course that wasn’t the intention of giving Congress the power to allot our hard-earned money. They were given this power of the purse because they are more closely related to the people, and could most easily be held accountable for it by the people. Politics is really simple... Follow the purse.