Three days a week

Rapid City Journal ^ | 06/19/2003 | The Journal Editorial Board

[SoDak]

Want to work just three days a week? Get elected.

Rep. Bill Janklow recently complained about how little work is done by his colleagues in Congress. He was known as a workaholic governor for South Dakota, often putting in time in the governor's office on holidays and weekends.

But Washington is a different story. "A lot of good people don't work very hard," said Janklow. "On Fridays, they don't do much. They all want to get on the airplane and go home. On Mondays, very little is scheduled. As a matter of fact, most votes on Monday don't take place until 6:30 p.m. because they know that no one will be there."

Janklow said Congress would get a lot more done if senators and representatives quit taking so many vacations.

So, how much time at the office do senators and representatives really put in? On the first week of June, the U.S. House of Representatives convened at noon on Monday, June 2, and worked through Thursday, taking Friday, June 6, off. That's a three-and-a-half-day week. The three-day weekend? For most members of Congress, it's the three-day work week.

So far this year, Congress has been in session for 66 days; for the rest of us, that's 119 working days (Monday-Friday) with New Years Day and Memorial Day off. And remember, Mondays and Fridays are usually half-days for congressmen.

What with fund-raisers, junkets, picnics back home and government-funded programs to announce, actual work on behalf of the people who elected them takes a back seat.

Members of Congress will make $154,700 this year for showing up about half the time expected of anyone else. What we'd like to see is a time clock on the House and Senate floors. When senators and representatives show up for work, they punch a time card, and when they leave the Capitol, they punch out. Maybe they'd get more done and be more appreciative of what their constituents go through to make an honest living if congressmen took fewer days off and worked harder to justify their high salaries, expensive perks and generous retirement benefits.

[SoDak]

On the other hand, a 3-day work week minimizes the damage they can do.

[xrp]

They should be paid hourly. Not salaried. Penis Gephardt would hardly have made any money this year due to all the sessions he has missed.

[Drango]

A lot of good people don't work very hard,"

Tell us something we don't know already...

[IowaHawk]

Exactly. I say raise their pay to $1 million, as long as they never get within 500 miles of DC.

[freeeee]

I'd prefer they worked three days a year.

[OldFriend]

They're not good people if they don't work very hard.

[SoDak]

I know that, Janklow knows that, apparently he was just trying to be nice. He must be mellowing with age, cuz he would have said so 10 years ago.

[freeeee]

we should be able to get our money's worth

<<< shudder >>>

[somemoreequalthanothers]

I've been saying this to people for years. This 'career politician' stuff just breeds corruption. And the way the system works now, no one other than that stands a chance. The Senate is the worst. The lifetime senators resist any new thought whatsoever. (flat tax, etc.) What ever happened to the term limits movement?

[AdamSelene235]

They should stay in their home state and telecommute. That way we could keep our eye on them. This would also make life more difficult for lobbyists.