We are rapidly approaching the wastelands Beyond the Sequesterdome, and there doesn’t seem to be anything anyone can do, except for maybe compromise on their precious principles a little bit, which was the whole point of the thing in the first place. As plenty of people have pointed out, the sequester is stupid: we are told that it is a “meat-axe” or a “chainsaw,” which are used by stupid butchers and lumberjacks, rather than a “scalpel,” which is used by smart, hunky doctors.
The sequester doesn’t allow for “smart” cuts, which is how everyone describes the cuts that they, personally, would prefer to see. But that was the point. The sequester wasn’t supposed to be a scalpel anymore than the Sword of Damocles was. Once upon a time, the (Delta) House Republicans couldn’t see their way to actually paying for the things that Congress had said it would pay for, so we all agreed to hang the sequester over everyone’s head, because Democracy and also Adult Conversations.
Now, also because of Democracy, people have been asking John Q. Public, “Hey, what would you like to see Congress do?” And there seems to be a developing consensus: just don’t pay Congress!
This is a breathtakingly stupid idea. It is government-by-purple-nurple, a knee-jerk reaction we should expect to hear from middle schoolers or Yahoo! News commenters, not grown-ass adults.
The dipshits at No Labels jumped on this bandwagon early, asking their “socially liberal, fiscally conservative” (cognitively dissonant? We digress.) adherents to sign a petition supporting “No Budget, No Pay.” Because the idea of refusing to pay Congress is pleasing to the lizard-brain of most Americans, B. Barry Bamz signed it into law. Except, whoops, that pesky 27th Amendment doesn’t let you do that, and the bill Obama signed allows Congressional pay to pick up exactly where it left off starting with the next Congress. Democracy!
Eric Basu, writing at Forbes and the WaPo takes a slightly more business-friendly tack, insisting that Congress should be “paid on performance,” just like those bold, risk-taking job creators out there in the REAL economy. What sort of “performance” would Mr. Basu like to see? Well, obviously, he’d like to see Real Leadership and Smart Cuts and Common Sense, and no, it doesn’t bother him that in a nation of more than 300 million people, there might be a wide range of opinions about what would satisfy that criteria, why do you ask? Mr. Basu begins by asking “Do you know what happens when small business owners lose money?” which is a great place to start since the American government is actually a limited-liability corporation, built using nothing but each Congressperson’s own grit-covered bootsraps.
Steve Almond is so upset about the broad-brush approach of the sequester that he’s come up with a novel solution: just knock the last zero off every Congressman’s salary.
The current salary for members of Congress is $174,000, not including benefits…Seventeen grand and change may not sound like much. [Ed. note: It doesn’t sound like much because it’s not much. In fact, for a three-person household in Washington, D.C., it is below the federally defined poverty level. Clearly, Congress will do its job if it is required to hit up food pantries on the regular, because malnutrition correlates highly with sound strategic thinking.] But based on the amount of actual legislating these politicians do (as opposed to fundraising and bloviating) they’d be making more than minimum wage.
David M. Walker at Teh Politicoez writes that it is outrageous, OUTRAGEOUS that Congresspeople only have to be in Washington so many days a year.
For example, according to the House calendar, it only plans to be in session during 2013 for 49.5 percent of weekdays. Compare that with a person who typically gets 20 days off a year (10 vacation days and 10 holidays) — they work 92.3 percent of weekdays.
I eagerly await Mr. Walker’s next column, in which he excoriates Congresspeople for spending too much time inside the Beltway Bubble, where they can’t feel or hear the concerns of Real Americans. Obvious solution: Congress should adopt a 730-day year, so its members can be in both Washington and their districts literally all the time.
So, we are a nation of dum-dums, yes? This is obvious, Thunderclees, stop wasting time that could be spent rewatching that high school basketball video with the kid who inbounded it to the other team. (On purpose! Idiot! He’s not even wearing the same jersey as you!)
Except we’re also a self-governing nation, and contrary to popular belief, elected officials really do listen to what their constituents tell them to do. More to the point, who do you want to represent you in Congress? A millionaire like Darrell Issa, for whom a $174,000-a-year salary is literally butt-wiping money? Because if you insist that Congress work for free, the only people who will be able to afford to serve in Congress are people who are already millionaires.
The sequester is a series of cuts totaling $85 billion. Computing the total compensation of Congress is a little tricky because of things like mileage allowances (Math: Hard!), but the high-end estimates put the bottom line around $6 billion per year. So, if we simply refuse to pay all our federal representatives and their dew-eyed staffers who were totally sold a bill of goods by “The West Wing,” we’ll have gotten 7% of the way toward solving this problem.
Huzzah! Only 93% of the problem left to solve! THAT is visionary leadership. THAT is the promise of self-government.
If you ever wonder why Congress can’t get its act together, please bear in mind that Mountain Dew Code Red has been on shelves for 12 years now. It’s not going anywhere, and neither are the mouthbreathing voters who drink it.
