If you're tired of listening to me rant about our utterly useless Congress, you may want to mouse over to another blog before reading any farther. Mike, for instance, has a bouncer he says is waiting to meet me for dissing him...see the picture here.
Okay, if you're still here, that probably means you hold our Congress in the same esteem I do. That being the case, if your local Sunday newspaper contains Parade Magazine, you may have seen the "Government Watch" article titled "Why Is Congress Doing So Little." You can read the article online here; just scroll down until you reach it. No time to read it? Here are the "highlights":
The current Congress has passed 260 laws...and 74 of those were to rename post offices.
It has also passed "hundreds" of resolutions, including one which congratulates the UC-Irvine volleyball team, another which recognizes soil as an "essential resource," and one which recognizes June 30th as "National Corvette Day."
As you might expect, there are differences of opinion about who is at fault for this ludicrous record. In the article, Republican Representative John Shimkus (R, Illinois) - he of the "National Corvette Day" resolution - blames Democrats for "failing to introduce more substantive legislation." Democrats blame Republicans for "blocking key votes," pointing to "a record number of (Republican) filibusters this session."
Your elected reprehensives are paid $169, 300 per year. For that much money, I can rename a lot of post offices and designate a lot of national days. There are a lot of things that don't have a special day designated yet...for instance, I don't think we have a National Invertebrate yet...no, wait...we do - there are 100 of them in the Senate and 435 in the House. Never mind.
Are you fed up yet? Have you written to your elected reprehensives to let them know? And I don't mean just printing up and signing the single-issue form letters helpfully produced by the staff drones of your favorite lobby...I mean a letter you wrote yourself, bitching about something you care deeply enough about to put pen to paper (or electrons to screen, if you're more into e-mail than a traditional ink-and-paper guy like me).
These horses asses need to know just how mad we are, and I can't do it all myself. The one thing they understand is reelection...and the only whip hand you hold is your vote. Let them know.
Otherwise, we'll continue to have an economy in the toilet, bazillions of illegal aliens, an arrogant and imperial presidency...and a lot of nicely-named post offices.
And that pisses me off.
Have a good day. Get mad. More thoughts tomorrow.
Bilbo
Now I'm pissed. I wonder how I'll feel in January? Probably even more pissed.
ReplyDeleteI can't comment on your country but you mentioning the economy being in the toilet reminded me of an email I received with the photos from a recently opened 'hi tech' public toilet somewhere in the heart of Kuala Lumpur. The DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER himself was there to announce the toilet open and ready for use. Doesn't he have anything better to do?
ReplyDeleteI can picture you punching the keys through the keyboard as you finished up. But, keyboards are cheap.
ReplyDeleteI read somewhere a long long time ago that one written letter to your congressman is worth 150 equivalent letters. I.e. if one person writes, there are 150 other people out there that feel the same way.
Wouldn't it be nice if more people wrote letters these days.