title:  Taxpayers Billed $800,000 A Year For Prayers In Congress
text: American taxpayers are being charged more than $66,000 an hour for prayers said in the US House and Senate.  The total cost per prayer, which lasts an average of 90 seconds, is a whopping $1,659.According to Andrew Seidel of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, who did the math to determine what taxpayers are being charged for prayers in Washington, the total annual bill comes to more than $800,000.Both the U.S. House and Senate employ a chaplain whose singular duty is to administer prayer. The budget for the House Chaplain s office is $345,000, while the Senate Chaplain s office receives $436,886.Seidel reports that both the House and Senate chaplains earn executive level salaries which are equal to those of high-ranking government officials, such as  general counsels of the Departments of the Army, Navy, and Air Force; the chief financial officers of NASA and the EPA; the Chief Information Officers of almost every major federal department and agency; and the Army s Director of Civil Defense. The two chaplains earn three-figure salaries for presiding over opening prayers in the house and senate, which only convene about 135 days out of the year.Seidel reports:And even with those fat salaries, the official chaplains let  guest chaplains  deliver many of the prayers about 40% in the House. The House chaplains gave 1,341 invocations over the 16 years from 2000-2015, or about 84 invocations each year. Guest chaplains gave another 857 over that same span. Congress is budgeting more than three-quarters of a million dollars every year for chaplains to give these prayers or coordinate the guest chaplains  prayers.As Seidel explains here, in 2011 the House Chaplain delivered just 104 prayers, lasting an average of 90 seconds each. That s about 2.6 hours of work. For that he was paid $172,500, or $66,346 an hour.Over the 15-year period between 2000 and 2015, US taxpayers spent $10 million on prayers in Washington. In the meantime, elected officials slashed spending on essential programs like WIC and SNAP as well as other assistance for the vulnerable.The idea that taxpayers are being billed exorbitant amounts of money for prayers, all while right-wing politicians screech about the national debt and wasteful government spending, is beyond outrageous.The church is not government and government is not a church. Everyone is free to exercise their religious beliefs in the U.S. Using millions of dollars in taxpayer money to support daily prayers in Washington, however, is not even close to acceptable.The Freedom From Religion Foundation is encouraging voters to make their voices heard on this issue by contacting their elected representatives here and here.Image credit: Wikipedia