AS URGENT BUSINESS IS LEFT TO WAIT
(…Congress takes six weeks off…with pay)

Like Elvis, Congress has left the building…the Capitol Building that is.

Which is perfect timing because August is not the best time to be in D.C., it being the muggiest month of the year, with hot air levels to rival anything that might be found in either chambers of Congress.

So urgent business is left to wait…as Congress takes six weeks off…with pay (reportedly some nine million dollars worth, which works out to $1.5 million per week, or, about three thousand per week per member, making it nice work…if you can get it).

All of which raises an interesting idea here: Might it be less costly for the taxpayers if we paid them by the week…to stay away…for most of the year? Of course, the Constitution requires Congress to be in session at least once per year, but why not limit that to only the first 12 weeks of each year (Jan-Mar), during which time its only task would be to produce a credible spending budget (preferably balanced); and, if it failed to do so in that allotted time, it would be docked $1.5 million per week…until it did?

Faced with such a strict time frame and with such a financial penalty provision, what are the odds much of the current gridlock there, caused by both political parties’ maneuverings and specious ideological wrangling, would disappear so that could get done, with the added bonus of it all being at a much lower cost for the taxpayers? It’s an intriguing thought.

Perhaps it’s time to consider such an approach. Everything else that’s been tried to motivate it has failed. While it might not produce anything much better than what we have now, it certainly couldn’t be any worse.

CENTURION