Rep. Alcee Hastings has girlfriend on his payroll at taxpayers expense.

The joys on being a congress critter on the taxpayer's dime. She pretty much as that job for life because the way the district is cut up, Hastings will never be voted out.

Job losses, home foreclosures and the worst economy in decades have forced many Americans to cut back or do without.

But not members of Congress, who voted themselves a 5 percent increase in their own budgets for staff salaries, office expenses and perks last year.

U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings, a Miramar Democrat, paid two staffers about $160,000 apiece — and one of them was his longtime girlfriend.

....Florida's highest-spending House member was Hastings, who went through 96.5 percent of his allowance, while the most frugal, Adam Putnam, a Central Florida Republican, used 75.6 percent of his budget. The top 10 spenders were evenly split among Democrats and Republicans.

....Most Florida representatives employed one high-earning staffer. But Hastings had two near the top of the pay scale: Chief of Staff Arthur Kennedy and Deputy District Director Patricia Williams, the congressman's girlfriend of many years.

The House nepotism rule prevents lawmakers from hiring relatives, including spouses, in-laws, aunts, uncles and even cousins. But it does not exclude significant unmarried others.

Williams began working for the representative after he was first elected in 1992. She's a disbarred lawyer who represented Hastings in the 1980s, when he was tried and acquitted of accepting bribes as a federal judge and subsequently impeached and removed from the bench.

Williams' pay has gone up more than 30 percent since 2002, according to LegiStorm, a nonpartisan group that tracks congressional salaries.

Hastings' office did not respond to several e-mails or phone messages seeking comment.