What we really need is a part time Congress. Send the bastards home and let them come back for about a week twice a year. It sure would make America “a better place.” Maybe if the piggies had to get a real job when they are not in the District of Corruption, they wouldn’t get so excited about raising taxes all of the time.
I completely agree!!
Texas lege meets biannually. Maybe the federal lege needs to meet a little more often...but not that much.
I think it would solve a multitude of problems with our patrician politicians. And maybe the poor mistreated pol in the article could be able to get a job and not be destitute.
Dang...he might be able to enjoy the privilege of serving his country if he weren’t impoverished by having to give up his livelihood.
Here’s a suggestion. Instead of raising pay, build old style college dormitories on Capitol Hill. Require the Congresscritters to live in the dorms, two to a room, while Congress is in session. The taxpayers will cover the cost of building and maintaining the dorms.. This will allow them to dispense with the cost of maintaining a home inside the beltway. Another advantage is they will all be equal in terms of housing while doing the people’s business. How could they possibly not like this concept?
Will the dorms be coed? Let them vote on the issue for our amusement.
If you go back and examine the Congress back in the 1840s...they mostly stayed at boarding houses, and shared rooms with other congressmen or senators. You find the same comment made by Robert Taft and Theodore Roosevelt when they were brought up to DC as government workers (twenty years before their presidency)....both complained how they would be unable to “entertain” at the level they’d done back home and the cost of living was ridiculous.
Personally, I don’t understand why they don’t go out and get GSA to buy an apartment complex in Arlington near the Metro (like those in Crystal City area), and just rent to the Congressman at a subsidized rate (say $500 a month instead of the $1600 normal rent cost would be).
I do agree....it’d be a lot smarter to limit them to two 90-day legislative periods for the year, but they would be giving up the live-action thrills, the interviews by mass media, and the chance to mingle with wealthy lobbyists.
NO reason croniegresscritters cant telecommute.
They should stay in their districts where they can be tarred, feathered, drawn, quartered or hung, as their constituents feel they deserve.