Rep Joe Carr: I didn't know I took all that money.
Rep. Carr must think Rutherford County voters are stupid enough to believe he inadvertently requested expense money, inadvertently signed for the check and inadvertently drove himself to the bank to cash them.
This weekend’s Tennessean focused more on Rep. Joe Carr (R-48) out spending every single lawmaker in the House when it came to requesting $171 per day for hotel and meal expenses.
Rep. Carr had the nerve to tell the newspaper that he “inadvertently” requested more money for hotel and meal expenses than lawmakers who live in Memphis and Knoxville. Rep. Carr lives only 30 miles from the Capitol, and no one seems to know how he could have run up so many expenses.
“Among area lawmakers, Carr, a first-term lawmaker, claimed the most in per diem expenses in the first quarter of 2009, filing for $9,234 in charges. Carr said he inadvertently ran up the per diems while preparing for his first session in the state legislature.
“Because the state finances were in such a mess, after the election and before the session, I took several trips to Nashville,” Carr said. “I didn’t realize that every time I came to the legislature, they did a per diem.”
Carr said he did not become aware of the extent of the charges until media attention was called to it in the wake of Williams’ letter. He pledged to claim fewer days in the future.
During the last legislative session, Rep. Carr tried to deny extended unemployment benefits to residents in his district, but then he made bogus expense requests for hotels and meals he never purchased and got his own unemployment stimulus check compliments of Tennessee tax payers.
Now that the media caught him with his hand in the tax payer’s wallet, Rep. Joe Carr has promised to claim fewer bogus expense requests in the future. That must make the voters of Lascassas feel much better.
I don’t know what to say about this. Here is a man who went on WGNS arguing with callers about why he was pushing legislation to deny extended unemployment benefits to families that needed it. And he was doing that while he was writing his own personal stimulus checks by claiming $171 a day in bogus hotel and meal expenses HE NEVER PURCHASED IN THE FIRST PLACE?
We have the power to stop out of control spending, and it starts at home. We can vote crooks and cons like Joe Carr out of office and put people in there that care about our families and care about trying to get us out of this hole they dug us into over the past 8 years. If you want more of what Bush has given us to clean up then keep on voting for people like Joe Carr. Maybe we can get someone in there that will do more than promise he won’t steal our money. Maybe we can get someone in there that will put a stop to it.
He seems to agree that it was a “mistake” to get the money. Shouldn’t he pay it back?
[...] The Rutherford County Democratic Party weighs in: “During the last legislative session, Rep. Carr tried to deny extended unemployment [...]
He should “inadvertently” pay us taxpayers back.
You do not request reimbursement for charges you know you did not incur. This is no accident. The last time I checked, this would be classified felony grand theft. Where is the state attorney? Charges should be filed! But then he is not Black, so maybe in Tennessee this is not a crime when it is a White politician. You know, boys will be boys, no harm done.
He should inadvertently be gifted with free meals and accomodations in prison.
THIS is the man Tea Partiers need to purge from their midst. A thief on their own stage picking their pockets more than any lawmakers in Washington to the tune of $18,000 in bogus hotel and meal expenses!
I wish one of his dentist friends will help him in the teeth department.
[...] Rutherford County Democratic Party says Rep. Joe Carr should pay back per diem payments made to him this year. The first-term Republican lawmaker, whose per diem payments ranked second in [...]