George Washington’s Expense Account

Reviewed by James H. Potts University of Central Florida

“In some ways General Washington’s expense account is the forerunner of the welfare state of the rich” [p. 30]. This quote from Marvin Kitman’s entertaining and irreverent “account” of George Washington’s financial arrangements for his services as Commander in Chief of the Continental Army aptly demonstrates that General Washington’s expense account writing is second to none. The statement takes on added significance in view of recent attempts to denigrate Washington’s accomplishments in war and peace.

Kitman, like many American schoolboys, had heard the story concerning Washington’s willingness to serve his country without salary during the Revolutionary War. Somewhat reminiscent of a United States national leader almost two centuries later, General Washington explained in a stirring speech after his election as Chief of the Continental Army in June 1775, that all he asked of his new country was that it pick up his expenses. Nothing much is heard in the classrooms about the equally stirring expense account General Washington submitted after the war.

Many modern expense account writers believe that each expense account submitted should be higher than the last. This “escalation principle” was followed unerringly by Washington during the 96 months he was on the expense account. Kitman’s exhaustive examination and evaluation of Washington’s sub-missions demonstrate some rules of the General’s model: omit nothing; be specific on the smaller expenditures and vague on the larger ones; whenever possible, intermingle personal and business expenses; pick up the check for one’s associates; and above all, be reasonable — know what the market will bear. While there is no claim that Washington invented the expense account, Kitman maintains that the items in the ledger book suggest that the General may have been the founding father of “expense account living.”

But there is more, much more, to this expense account than mere financial citations of payments to whom and for what. This account, to quote Kitman, “… is filled with tales of violence, sex, and camaraderie; of betrayal and espionage; of night patrols and hot pursuits; of men living on the edge of death or capture by the hated tyrant” [p. 23]. Further, the account evokes the aroma of special dinners and the rustle of clean sheets as well as the rattle of sabres, the roar of muskets, and the smell of damp defective gunpowder.

For the eight-year duration of the war against the British, General Washington turned in an expense account slightly in excess of $449,000. However, all of Washington’s bill wasn’t for out-of-pocket expenses. Included was implicit interest of 6 percent per annum for the money he laid out from his private purse to cover his expenses for the first two years of the war. Also, a surcharge for depreciation was thrown in, which was caused by some degree, by the loss of confidence in his military leadership.

The sum of $449,000 may at first appear exorbitant when compared to the $48,000 General Washington would have been paid had he been compensated for eight years of service like other patriot generals. However, to begin to remotely appreciate the significance of the remuneration, one must compare the expense account to what it is worth in today’s buying power. Those Continental dollars that Washington was requesting were much harder currency than we have today. Continental money had a nice ring to it. Whether we use the conservative scale of appreciation — say 10 times the 1969 dollar (or 35 times the 1989 dollar) — or the Galbraithean scale of 50 times, we are talking about millions, according to Kitman.

Clearly, Washington was a hero and Kitman doesn’t dimin-ish that contention merely because of the General’s highly creative expense account; it merely proves his humanity. As it has been pointed out for two centuries, George Washington was willing to make every sacrifice for liberty except one: reducing his standard of living. But even here, says Kitman, he may have sincerely been unaware of the incongruity of his actions. Writing in 1776, Washington indicated “No person wishes more to save money to the public than I do and no person has aimed more at it” [p. 282].

In the final analysis, Washington may have been just another congressman at heart — wanting economy for the nation, with a little prosperity for his own interests. Nonetheless, his account was promptly settled at the conclusion of the war, while lower ranking men waited for years. However, when he offered to serve for expenses only after his election as first President, Congress promptly turned George Washington down flat. He was begged to accept a salary of $25,000 when the salary of the Secretary of State (a gentleman by the name of Thomas Jefferson) was fixed at $3,500.

Read this delightful account by Marvin Kitman and judge for yourself.