Budget deal includes $174K payout to widow of millionaire senator -- By Alex Pappas, The Daily Caller

Buried inside the budget deal brokered by Mitch McConnell and Harry Reid: a payout to the millionaire widow of the late Democratic senator Frank Lautenberg.

The Daily Caller obtained a copy of the draft legislation agreed to by the Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate.

The agreement would re-open the government and raise the debt limit.

It also authorizes this expenditure: “Notwithstanding any other provision of this joint resolution, there is appropriated for payment to Bonnie Englebardt Lautenberg, widow of Frank R. Lautenberg, late a Senator from New Jersey, $174,000.”

The 89-year-old New Jersey Democrat died this summer.

USA Today reported last month that the proposed one-time payment to Bonnie Englebardt is equivalent to a full year’s salary for a senator. It’s a long tradition of Congress to make such expenditures to widows.

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