September 8, 2010
A Snow Day for Congress
It all started as a joke.
No, I'm not referring to Congress, because it had a very righteous beginning. (It sadly only turned into a joke over the past few decades.) I am referring a comment between my staff members that we as taxpayers must be saving a fortune by having the federal government shut down due to the global-warming-induced blizzard that has shut down most of the Northeast.
Once we started thinking about it, it became abundantly clear that we have saved a bundle by forcing Congress to postpone their spending and borrowing spree. Who knows what might come of this? For the first time in at least a year, Congress is forced to stop and think about what they're doing to our Country. (Alright, maybe they're not thinking, but at least they've had to stop spending and borrowing.)
Now, where do we go from here? If it saves us money by simply keeping current Congressmen and women from Congress, should we not try and make this permanent? One staffer said,
Imagine - and this is probably a pipe-dream right now - what a solution this would be to our enormous deficit problem; schedule furlough days for the entire federal government for a predetermined amount of time (save for the security bureaus). That way we not only sever the legislative hands that keep reaching into our (and our kids') pocketbooks, but we also reap the savings (which we use to pay the debt down). It's a perfect solution; two birds, one stone.
I could have not put it better myself. And while we're at it: term limits couldn't hurt.
Even more fascinating (or disheartening) is the fact that in the 110th Congress, over 11,000 bills were written. Only about 10% made it out of committee. If we were to pay our legislators on the work product they are performing, we could cut their salaries from $174K/year for 12 months of "work" to around $20K/year and 60 days. For the rest of the time they could find "real" jobs like the rest of us.
See "The life and death of bills" here: http://assets.sunlightlabs.com/billvisualization/index.html
This story showed that of the 11,056 bills that were introduced in the 110th Congress, 9,904, were referred to a committee by default, never saw any action, and died there. Statistically, this means 89.5% of the bills were a waste of time and our tax money.
We are paying each member of the house and senate a minimum of $174,000 each year. Do you believe we are getting our money’s worth if our representatives are wasting time with fringe bills that never go anywhere? If 89.5% of what is being done accomplishes nothing, why are these people there on our dime? If you owned a business, would you pay someone full time wages for part time work?
For the record, according to the Open Congress website, as of 9-12-09 the current Congress (111th) is up to 3,547 bills since January 6, 2009.
I know! Let's move the Congress to Antarctica! Or at least New Hampshire, where I'm from.
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