Laura Rozen has discovered that Congress only plans to work 97 days this year.
I guess that’s why they can’t do any oversight, it would interfere with their four day weekend when they are in session. I think it’s time to look at their compensation package, including health care and retirement.
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9 comments
Yes.. and I think we should pay particularly close attention on their MEDICAL INSURANCE coverage!
This pisses me off.
They get paid, nicely.
They don’t represent US most of the time.
It looks like they’re really not going to be working all that much.
They get all sorts of great benefits.
They give themselves raises without us rating their performances.
It’s hardly even enough time to be considered a part-time job. They are making more than $1000 for every day they show up and they are really only working Wednesday and Thursday morning.
CRC: It is entirely unclear how you can call work what those critters do during the 97 days that they are there.
Well, unless shoveling shit is work. Then, we are all wallowing in the fruits of their labor.
Time to turn on a fire hose and flush out the building…
It really galls me the way they talk about the possibility that someone who is down and out might get an extra $100/month while they are pulling down a six-figure salary and all the benefits for less work than my Mother does as a volunteer.
After flushing it, we need to fumigate it. Cockroaches are tough.
It’s expensive to live in the D.C. area, as I know well. I’ve never objected to congresscritters receiving enough of a salary to relocate & raise a family.
I’d propose cutting their salaries in half and providing dormitories, but there are far too many independently wealthy types in office. Which leads to another point – you almost HAVE to be independently wealthy to run for federal office. There’s no better example of that than the crowd of millionaire congressmen/women gathered around yesterday as Dubya signed the Trust Fund Baby and Big Oil Tax Relief Act.
Andante, they are only in town Tuesday and Wednesday night, the way Rumsfeld is decimating the military there have to be empty barracks in the Washington area, let them find out how the military lives.
And try to scrape by on two meals a day (at least one of which must be an MRE or whatever the modern equivalent of C-rations is). They’re so gung-ho about supporting our troops, then let them eat what our troops eat (forget about cocktails, foie gras, and anything involving fusion that isn’t a weapon), wear what our troops wear, and sleep where our troops sleep. I bet we’d be out of Iraq in a heartbeat, and military families wouldn’t have to go on welfare or seek out food stamps or handouts to make ends meet anymore.
I would be satisfied if they had to live with all of the laws they passed, instead of automatically exempting themselves, but a steady diet of MREs should lead to improvements.
We could build them a housing area so they could be bused to and from work to save fuel or we could just make them telecommute. They could do everything they normally do from their districts with broadband access.
No one associated with the current government wants to work.