Money for nothing
It looks like the 109th Congress will drag itself to the finish line today, pushing the nation’s business into next year.
“There is a lot of battle fatigue among members, probably on both sides of the aisle,” U.S. Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., told the Washington Post. “Contrary to popular belief, members of Congress are human beings. They have a certain shelf life and a certain amount of energy to be drawn on. We’re tired.”
Poor babies. Imagine how exhausted they’d be if they worked full time.
Scholars Norman Orenstein of the American Enterprise Institute and Thomas Mann of the Brookings Institution, authors of “The Broken Branch,” have been watching Congress for 37 years. Their verdict? This is the laziest bunch they’ve witnessed.
The House will have been in session for 103 days. A typical workweek starts on Tuesday evening and ends late Thursday morning. The rest of the time is spent fundraising or traveling back and forth to districts.
Maybe it’s the jet lag that has them so tuckered out. It sure isn’t the accomplishments.
Congress has failed to adopt nine of the 11 major appropriations bills. Instead leadership plans to adopt emergency measures and plop the rest into the laps of new leaders. So, before it can take up new matters when it convenes next year, Congress will have to clean up old messes.
A number of tax-break extensions that were promised early this year could fall by the wayside. They include the sales-tax deduction and tax breaks for research and development, college tuition and teachers’ out-of-pocket classroom expenses. Any of those could probably withstand an up or down vote, but they’ve been strapped to more controversial legislation.
Senators and representatives make $165,000 per year, which will work out to about $1,600 for every day they were in session in 2006. It’s true that staying in touch with voters in home districts is important, but that’s always been the case. And it’s not like the trips back home have spawned an admirable responsiveness. Medicare Part D, the new prescription drug benefit, turned out to be a mess, and many members of Congress were unable to explain it to their constituents.
The truth is that the short workweek is part of a larger problem. Congress has slowly ceded power to the executive branch, making itself more of a rubber stamp than an independent body. The consequences, particularly when it comes to our involvement in Iraq, have been enormous.
The recent election will solve part of this problem, because divided government will naturally bring more oversight. In the House, the new leadership has announced plans to make sure members put in an honest day’s work, rather than skip out for political activities designed to consolidate power. They need to be held to their word.
The nation can no longer afford a part-time Congress at full-time pay.