Congress in high gear, now working 5 days a week!

Mark Dygert

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124682940240297211.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

It is a daunting schedule, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D., Md.) are keeping lawmakers in Washington for five-day workweeks in July, rather than their usual Tuesday-through-Thursday routine.

Reuters
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D., Mont.) is seeking bipartisan support for a health-care overhaul that Democratic leaders hope to finish before their summer break begins in August.

"This will be one of the most challenging periods in the legislative session" Reid spokesman Jim Manley said.

I had no idea working 5 day work weeks in July was a hardship... Especially with all the time off they've had and the 5 weeks they'll have off in Aug-Sept.

http://www.senate.gov/legislative/2009_schedule.htm
A week off for presidents day.
2 weeks off for Easter.
A week off for Memorial day.
A week off for Independence day.
5 weeks off for summer break.

It's awesome that they get paid to do next to nothing but then they call working normal hours high gear? No wonder the world thinks Americans are lazy apathetic assholes. With leaders like this, how can you think otherwise?

Joao Sapiro

everytime i comment that with friends they call me a left winger, but its infuriating how much people use the system to personal profit and get loads of benefits to sit on their asses and do nothing, how do you expect them to worry about normal wage people when they dont go thru the same hardships ?

Kevin Albers

oh no! Crunch mode! Does this mean 3 hour martini lunches are briefly suspended for them? oh, the humanity!

JohnnyRaptor

shit i didnt know about this! now i dislike you even moar!

Firebert

wowza! what a disappointing eye opener!

t4paN

Johny wrote: »

everytime i comment that with friends they call me a left winger, but its infuriating how much people use the system to personal profit and get loads of benefits to sit on their asses and do nothing, how do you expect them to worry about normal wage people when they dont go thru the same hardships ?

Dude, learn to read. These poor folks are actually going through the same hardships as everyone else. They're working 5 whole days a week for crying out loud!!!

low odor

democracy is for suckers....This town needs an enima...all but a handfull of these assholes would quit if they were held to the same standards....god bless america, home of the numb, land of the slightly annoyed but too lazy to do anything about it.

Mongrelman

Poor swines!

Our folks in the UK work more than that (allegedly) so they get to claim expenses on things like moat cleaning, mortage payments that have already been paid off and porn films in hotels.

Firebert

Just curious now that I think about it... is that like working like you and i go to work like they are technically "working" or is it referring to sessions of the senate and congress when they convene? so instead of them meeting only three days a week, they will now be meeting five... same for the vacation, is that just when they don't meet at all? just because they are not meeting with all the other senators doesn't mean they would not be working... maybe??? in fact i would think that when they do meet they get less work done themselves because all they do is sit there, listen, and debate....... i'm just wondering because i drew and slept a lot in my history classes

now what will really grind my gears is their pay rates if they do only "work" three days a week with that much vacation....

Mark Dygert

Those are work from home weeks. As in go home to your district and think about what you want to do when congress is in session next time around. Listen to the messages from the irate public, work on your re-election campaign speech, design a new poster, get loaded at a fund raiser...

Most use that time for travel. While traveling from Wash DC to California someone might be forced to have a stop overin Fiji, or the Bahamas. Its like a teacher in service day, the kids aren't there, the teachers can work from home and no one cares what they do or if they actually get anything done.

rawkstar

mmmm politics, seems like a pretty good career if you want to have a family and see them and stuff.

Junkie_XL

Firebert wrote: »

Just curious now that I think about it... is that like working like you and i go to work like they are technically "working" or is it referring to sessions of the senate and congress when they convene? so instead of them meeting only three days a week, they will now be meeting five... same for the vacation, is that just when they don't meet at all? just because they are not meeting with all the other senators doesn't mean they would not be working... maybe??? in fact i would think that when they do meet they get less work done themselves because all they do is sit there, listen, and debate....... i'm just wondering because i drew and slept a lot in my history classes

now what will really grind my gears is their pay rates if they do only "work" three days a week with that much vacation....

Members of congress each make $177K / year regardless of hours put in. Biggest welfare recipients of all. Then some also engage in accepting lobbyist bribes from various industries for $50K-100K each, on average.

sorta off topic...cap & trade pisses me off.

arshlevon

rawkstar wrote: »

mmmm politics, seems like a pretty good career if you want to have a family and see them and stuff.

LOL! no shit..

Josh_Singh

How does one get into that line of work?
http://www.centeroncongress.org/radio_commentaries/how_to_run_for_congress.php

http://www.ehow.com/how_2096844_run-congress.html

Thegodzero

So if they were to work all the hrs they have to work they would still only be working 30 standard work weeks. If they were paid by the hour they would make about $200 an hour.

Firebert

Thegodzero wrote: »

So if they were to work all the hrs they have to work they would still only be working 30 standard work weeks. If they were paid by the hour they would make about $200 an hour.

No wonder these cats get into so much trouble... too much money and too much free time on their hands. The only thing I remember about how the house and senate operate is that School of Rock "How a Bill is Made" video.

Thegodzero

The thing is they are not paid by the hour because they are supposed to be reading 500+ page documents on proposed bills every night before they vote on them or debate them. The thing is most only read the "clif notes" so don't have any idea what they are really voting on. The cliff notes are written by their interns so if you really want to know whats going on with the proposed bills you be better off talking to one of them. I think if they got rid of the interns and made them read the docs we would be much better off, but if we did that then they would just read the first page and call that good enough.

Joseph Silverman

that said, we all work or want to work making videogames and most of society thinks of us as lazy hippies sitting around all day achieving nothing that's good for anyone.

Judge not let ye be judged, you know, all that.



oh who am i kidding this is the internet

Joseph Silverman

that said, we all work or want to work making videogames and most of society thinks of us as lazy hippies sitting around all day achieving nothing that's good for anyone.

Judge not let ye be judged, you know, all that.



oh who am i kidding this is the internet

whats_true

Wow, time for a job shift!

flaagan

Considering the utter bs that's passed into law nowadays... do we really want them in there MORE?

Sage

five days.. nooo they can't work five days that's slavery .....brutal. I mean they might develope some work ethics or something, we can't have that... utter BS...

Junkie_XL

SupRore wrote: »

that said, we all work or want to work making videogames and most of society thinks of us as lazy hippies sitting around all day achieving nothing that's good for anyone.

Judge not let ye be judged, you know, all that.

oh who am i kidding this is the internet

But as a game developer a contribution is being made to a product. Something is being produced and it has worth to the consumer otherwise they wouldn't buy it. Anne Frank went nuts doing her same crosswords over and over again. Even during tough times people still need things that occupy their mind. If it weren't for entertainment, those that produce things in industries that many deem as more vital (food, etc) would commit suicide out of boredom. Everyone has a place.

Except politicians. Most produce nothing. They draft laws that tell people how they can run their own lives. And they take a lot of your money so they can continue doing this as they fly around in their Learjets.

00Zero

so what youre saying is...the congressional interns have the power to change the country?

aesir

You guys all have it wrong. Congress has it right. We should all work at their pace. Or even better Bush pace. mmmmm

Thegodzero

00Zero wrote: »

so what youre saying is...the congressional interns have the power to change the country?

Yes.

They have the power to sway the congressmen by telling them only what they want him to know.