Metro hires Hill lobbyists for $200,000 (District of Columbia)

The fact that DC spends this amount of money for lobbyists should make all US taxpayers disgusted as it is our tax dollars at work. We are not sure we have all the money that the District of Columbia gets from the Federal Government as we could not find a listing except in the Congressional Bill but here is what we have found so far:

Federal Money Appropriated in the `District of Columbia Appropriations Act, 2009'

Federal Payment for Resident Tuition Support: $35,100,000
Federal Payment for Emergency Planning and Security Costs in the District of Columbia: $39,177,000
Federal Payment to District of Columbia Courts: $248,409,000
Defender Services in the District of Columbia: $52,475,000
improvements for District of Columbia courthouse facilities: $76,076,000
Federal Payment to the Court Services and Offender Supervisor Agency: $203,490,000
Federal Payment to the District of Columbia Public Defender: $35,659,000
Federal Payment to the District of Columbia Water and Sewer: $16,000,000
Federal Payment to the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council: $1,774,000
Federal Payment to the Chief Financial Office of District of Columbia: $4,887,622
Federal Payment for School Facilities: $54,000,000
Federal Payment to Jump Start School Reform: $20,000,000
Federal Payment for Consolidated Laboratory Facility: $21,000,000
Federal Payment for Central Library and Branch Locations: $7,000,000
Federal Payment to the Office of Mayor of the District of Columbia: $3,387,500
General Fund of the District of Columbia: operating expenses for the District of Columbia for fiscal year 2009 under this heading shall not exceed the lesser of the sum of the total revenues of the District of Columbia for such fiscal year or $9,888,095,000 (of which $6,082,474,000 shall be from local funds (including $420,119,000 from dedicated taxes), $2,177,382,000 shall be from Federal grant funds, $1,621,929,000 shall be from other funds, and $6,310,000 shall be from private funds)

The amount of money that is given to DC for the Court system is mind boggling. Is there that much crime in DC? If there is, maybe they should be hiring more police with the money.

Also why are American taxpayers funding DC students to attend school any place in America?

No wonder DC has a million dollars to spend on lobbyist with all the money they get from the Federal Government.

Metro hires Hill lobbyists for $200,000

Metro has hired a top lobbying firm for $200,000 to represent the transit agency on Capitol Hill.

That's on top of the more than $900,000 in salaries the agency pays to its nine-person, in-house, government relations staff, not including their employee benefits and other department expenses.

Still, Metro says the more than $1 million it spends to pay people to finesse its relationships with government is worth the cost, even as the agency is facing a tight budget squeeze with a projected $175 million shortfall next year in its $1.4 billion operating budget.

"If you look at the money they end up bringing in ... it's a bargain," Metro spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein said. "It more than pays for itself."