Congressman Jim Hansen’s return of $70,000 to the U.S Treasury from his office expense allotment is a leadership example his colleagues would do well to follow – not only in their own office budgets but the nation’s budget as well. The $70,000 Hansen put back in the federal coffer is about 15.9 percent of his total $440,000 office expense allotment. The allotments are pro-rated to each member of Congress on the basis of how close his or her home district is to the nation’s capital. Compared to our total national debt of $1 trillion and the current projected. 1983 deficit of $95 billion. Hansen’s gesture is like a grain of sand in the Sahara. s a great hea inegrabbing gesture at a propitious time when campaigns are getting underway for off-year elections, but $70.000 however shrunken by inflation – is still $70.000. “I was able to return the $70,000,” Hansen said. “by limiting the size and salaries of my staff, and by reducing the amount we spent on expenses for travel and purchase of office supplies.” Hansen’s staff has told The Daily Herald that the congressman caught some flak from some of his own party colleagues who chided him for returning a surplus they argued he should have used for special GOP congressional caucuses. Hansen’s actions obviously will boost his reelection chances in a newlydefined district, but they still go to the heart of what we Americans have a right to expect from the people we hire at the ballot box to represent our interests. Good leaders don’t ask the people they’re responsible for to do anything they aren’t willing and able to do for themselves. Congress and the president are asking all the American people to endure the effects of dramatic reductions in federal expenditures. It is a vitally necessary but nonetheless painful process. Yet just before the 1981 Christmas recess, members of Congress granted themselves a pay raise by tacking onto a black lung beneficts bill a provision that will allow them to write off $18.000 a year for in-Washington living expenses. No matter what Congress does, the President and the people should not waiver from their commitment to turn the economic mess around. But Congress would do wonders for its credibility if it did to its own budget what it is doing to the nation’s budget and asking all Americans to make adjustments in their personal budgets.