Thursday, August 07, 2008

Congress and Their 5 Week Vacation

Pack 04 has once again taken me up on an offer to write on here. Here is his guest post, hope you enjoy!

It has probably been beaten to death by now but why not pile on:


Sen. Tom Coburn: We’re fighting hard. You need to be fighting hard.


Sen. Jeff Sessions: If the government is not functioning, it’s difficult to know how to help them.


Rep. Chris Shays: If they go off on vacation for two months while our troops fight — that would be the outrage of outrages.


Sen. John Warner: An action of that consequence would send a very bad signal to the world that they don't have the resolve that matches the resolve of the brave troops that are fighting in the battle today.


Sen. John Kerry: An Iraqi Parliament that spends July and August sitting around a swimming pool while their country descends into further unrest.


Rep. Nancy Pelosi: While our troops are in harm's way there and the need for us to see strong political change, it seems they've left before their work was completed.


Words spoken around the time the Iraqi government was planning a 2 month vacation last summer. Last Friday by a vote of 213-212 the House decided to take a break and go on vacation. I suppose nothing bad is going on in America. Energy prices are high, we are in a “recession,” people cannot afford to get medicine or healthcare, the war in Iraqi is still going on. I guess these issues we were led to believe are not as critical as thought. Those are all things the House can do something about. Maybe they are just going to telecommute.


They are going on vacation using/spending money that they receive from our tax money. The Speaker of the House gets $217,400 a year, $169,300 a year for the rest of them. They also get a cost of living increase. I work for state government, most likely my promised cost of living increase is going away because the state has not collected as much. Do you think they will decide not to give themselves a cost of living increase?


They are going on vacation and my Dad who lives hours away from me had to cancel his vacation to see me because he cannot afford to travel down here. I get to see him very little every year. I cannot afford to get up to see him either for the same reason. Let’s look big picture, this month troops are going to die, people are going to get sick and stay sick because of lack of affordable health care, kids are going to go hungry because people had to choose between buying food or driving to work.


The evil republicans and a few democratic voted to stay to solve problems. They lost but I am proud of them. What do the republicans need to do now? Stay in DC and work. Send photographers out to take pictures of the Democrats on the beach. Run ads showing who is doing what. Win in November.



4 comments:

Kram said...

I couldn't disagree more with you, Pack04. The fewer days Congress is in Washington the less they can continue to screw with our lives and mess up our Country! Let them go on a 12 month vacation, and I say pay them more if they do.

No, I am not totally serious about that but there is some truth to it.

I think the sad truth of the matter is that Pelosi claims to be for Democracy but yet she refuses to allow votes on issues. I'd like to know her definition of Democracy. Politicians continue to manipulate definitions to fit their own agenda. We as government indoctrinated subjects continue to allow it, I'm not sure which is worse.

Kevin said...

I did not think about it that way but it is a good point that they cannot screw it up if they are not there.

You are correct that it is our fault as citizens to allow our politicians to act the way they do. That is probably the worst and most disappointing part of this whole thing.
Perhaps the hopeful politicians can use that to their advantage.

Andy D said...

There is a certain amount of relief whenever Congress isn't in session. As Kram said, if they aren't at the Capitol, then they can't screw up our lives.

However, I called my representatives office yesterday and said I wanted them to go to Congress and debate with the Republicans. Their response, "There aren't any Republicans in DC right now, they all went home." So either my Rep is lying to me, or the news is lying to us...

Kevin said...

Andy I am sure there are a couple of Republican representatives in the Country. Give their office a call and find out where they are.

Have you heard of the Paris Hilton Plan? It sounds way too simple but it seems to me like it could work. Of course it is not a short term fix to help the poor people. But then again neither is a 5 week vacation.

The plan would mean a compromise for the good of the American people . That is not going to happen because our Congress seems to pass laws that are good for the Americans who voted for the party in power.

Here is an idea to help the Hilton Plan. Draw up some sort of withdraw time table from the off shore drilling.