The House banking scandal broke in early 1992, when it was revealed that the United States House of Representatives allowed members to overdraw their House checking accounts without risk of being penalized by the House bank (actually a clearinghouse).
This is also sometimes known as Rubbergate (from the expressions "rubber check" (bounced check) and "Watergate)". The term is misleading because House checks did not bounce; they were honored because the House Bank provided overdraft protection to its account holders, the Office of the Sergeant at Arms covered the House Bank with no penalties. It was also sometimes known as the "congressional check-kiting scandal".
Read more about House Banking Scandal: The Scandal, Public Exposure
Famous quotes containing the words house, banking and/or scandal:
“Yet the day wears,
And door succeeds door;
I try the fresh fortune—
Range the wide house from the wing to the centre,
Still the same chance! she goes out as I enter.
Spend my whole day in the quest,—who cares?”
—Robert Browning (1812–1889)
“One of the reforms to be carried out during the incoming administration is a change in our monetary and banking laws, so as to secure greater elasticity in the forms of currency available for trade and to prevent the limitations of law from operating to increase the embarrassment of a financial panic.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“Certain it is that scandal is good brisk talk, whereas praise of one’s neighbour is by no means lively hearing. An acquaintance grilled, scored, devilled, and served with mustard and cayenne pepper excites the appetite; whereas a slice of cold friend with currant jelly is but a sickly, unrelishing meat.”
—William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–1863)