High Pay, Low Workload, No Performance Reviews - The Life Of A Washington Politician

Many times we have reviewed the major, unresolved issues Americans have struggled with and against over the past few decades including a lost war on drugs, failing public schools, crumbling infrastructure, escalating health care costs, leaky borders, the lack of a national energy strategy and program, skyrocketing national debt, a mismanaged economy, government corruption and cronyism, etc. These problems go unresolved even though the Washington political class confiscates over $2 TRILLION a year in taxpayer wealth. 

Many times we have also reviewed the large amount of waste, hundreds of billions of dollars a year, that large and small Federal government programs lose every year to waste, inefficiencies, and criminal fraud. Just three of them, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security waste over $200 billion a year.

In our November 7, 2011 post we reported that, according to CBS News, as reported in the November 11, 2011 issue of The Week magazine, members of the House of Representatives earn over $170,000 a year, more than three times the average household income of the typical American household. However, those Congressional members will be in Congressional session only 109 workdays in 2012 while in recess for 151 weekdays, primarily to be able to focus more on their re-election than the business of the country. In January, August, and October of 2012, they are scheduled to work six days, three days, and five days, respectively.

This lackadaisical attitude is not just in Congress. We currently have a President and Vice President who have attended well over 100 campaign fundraising events this year alone, have taken numerous vacations, have held numerous athletic team photo ops, and have played many, many rounds of golf while the nation suffers through a horrendous economic reality.

We have a Senate majority leader in Harry Reid who has not allowed the Senate to develop a detailed national budget for over three years, one of his primary responsibilities. However, Mr. Reid recently introduced legislation that will establish Federal government over the boxing industry and actually held a news conference to protest the fact that U.S. Olympic uniforms were made in China. But he still has not developed a Federal budget for over 1,100 days.

Many times we have reviewed how the political class has hijacked our political processes for their own good. How they gerrymander Congressional districts to ensure their reelection, how they accept all kinds of campaign donations from outside entities in exchange for doing the bidding of these outside entities, how they use taxpayer money in the thinly disguised ruse of earmarks to receive more reelection campaign cash.

Thus, is it any wonder why no issue ever gets resolved in this country? Is it any wonder why taxes are never well spent and never go down? Is it any wonder why we are heading for a national fiscal disaster and national economic collapse in this country?

As the old saying goes, "its good work if you can get it." High pay,outstanding benefits, low performance, and no performance reviews since they corrupt the current performance review process (i.e. control the election processes). There is no accountability for what does or does not get done, what does get spent and how.

The point of all this was driven home by a short article in the July 23, 2012 issue of Business Week magazine. The article, "The Doing A-Lot-of-Nothing Congress," listed out all of the 54 bills that this sitting of Congress has passed. The highlights, or lowlights, of the article include the following:

• First of all, the number 54 is pretty atrocious. I do not want Congress passing bad legislation or passing legislation for the sake of just passing something, but from a pure number perspective, according to the article, the low number of 54 is one of the least productive sessions of Congress in our history, especially in light of all the problems we face.
• Of the 54 bills passed, the article considers only five of them were big, important pieces of legislation.
• Three of the other bills were only temporary, stop gap bills that led to the final passage of one of the five important bills.
• Three of the bills were nothing more than a rubber stamp approval of existing laws that needed to be renewed.
• Nine of the bills were no more than bills to approve trivial real estate transactions including transferring land beneath offices in Alta, Utah to the town itself, giving Federal property to the city of Tracy, California and the city of Pascagoula, Mississippi, giving Federal property in western Alaska to a company owned by Alaskan natives, a law to promote the development of some waterfront in D.C. and a law to protect the Maine Lobster Memorial statue.
• There were sixteen bills passed that the authors of the article classified as miscellaneous and included such trivial undertakings as directing the U.S.Mint to print coins in honor of the 225th anniversary of the U.S. Marshall Service, granting more law enforcement power to prosecute smugglers who build or finance tunnels into the U.S., and clearing the way for a new bridge crossing the St.Croix river between Minnesota and Wisconsin.
• There were sixteen bills that renamed post office buildings.
• There were three laws that renamed other Federal buildings such as a courthouse, a wildlife refuge, and a border patrol station.
• And finally, to add insult to injury, there was one bill passed that fixed the address of a renamed post office building.

That is all this Congressional session accomplished. If you add up all of the red, bold faced numbers listed above you should come up with 54, with about a third of them involving nothing more than changing the name on a building. Pathetic and dysfunctional.

For this they earn more in salary than probably 95% of the rest of America's citizens. They get health care and other benefits that are probably better than every other Americans'. They get these full time benefits and full time pay for working part time hours. They get to indulge in insider IPOs to enhance their earnings and probably use their government positions to forge post political office jobs that pay even more. And when you really come down to it, they get all this for approving the names of post office buildings.

A couple of suggestions on how to remedy the situation:

1. Most Americans have to work about 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year to earn their annual salary. This comes out to about 2080 hours a year. I propose that the annual salary of these Washington politicians be reduced on a percentage basis for every hour below 2080 hours that they do not work. For example, if Congress is only going to be in session for five days this October and October has 23 work days for most other Americans, than Congressional member pay would only be 5/23rds in October. Thus, rather than receiving about $14,200 in their October pay check ($170,000 annual pay evenly spread across 12 months), each member of Congress would only get paid about $3,100 for their only five days of work.
2. Step 39 from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" would impose term limits on all Federal political offices. Maybe if a sitting politician knew that they only had a predefined, limited time to make a worthwhile contribution to the country and their legacy, they would take more initiative beyond renaming post office buildings.
3. Step 37 from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" proposes a process where American citizens would get to grade all Washington politicians, President, Vice President, Cabinet Secretaries and members of Congress, on their performance and withhold payment of salary and benefits if those grades to not meet minimal thresholds. This might encourage members of the political class to cooperate more, to respect each other more, to compromise for the good of the country more since their paychecks would hang in the balance if they did not.

I am reminded of the words from the movie, "The American President," as presented by actor Michael Douglas: "America is not easy. You gotta want it badly because it's going to put up a fight." Based on the lazy behavior, extensive vacation time, golfing time, and campaigning time, and the bad priorities of the current Washington political class along with the many unresolved issues of our times, I am quite sure that our current set of politicians do not want it bad enough.


We invite all readers of this blog to visit our new website, "The United States Of Purple," at:

http://www.unitedstatesofpurple.com/

The United States of Purple is a new grass roots approach to filling the office of President of The United States by focusing on the restoration of freedom in the United States, focusing on problem solving skills and results vs. personal political enrichment, and imposing term limits on all future Federal politicians. No more red states, no more blue states, just one United States Of America under the banner of Purple.

The United States Of Purple's website also provides you the formal opportunity to sign a petition to begin the process of implementing a Constitutional amendment to impose fixed term limits on all Federally elected politicians. Only by turning out the existing political class can we have a chance of addressing and finally resolving the major issues of or times.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at www.loathemygovernment.com. It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.repealamendment/