Take Your Time, Congress

OF ALL THE  WONDERFUL ads on this website, for which we are surely all extremely grateful, some stand out. One of them asked the question: "should congress work five days a week like everybody else?"  Click here to vote. (referring to the United States congress)

For me to click and vote would be a violation of contractual obligation, so i missed out, and wonder how the vote turned out. Had i but had the opportunity, my vote would have been a resounding "no, and HELL no!"  Yes, that emphatic.

I don't know who made the ad and put it up, presumably some group whose belief is that the problems of amercia are the result of congressional sloth, that congress simply does not work hard enough to solve the nations problems, and should work at least as hard as other americans do.

After all, the question "should congress work five days a week like every one else" is a loaded question, intended obviously to elicit a wave of affirmative responses. But don't let that fool you. Vote whichever way YOU think best. No corporate brainwashing!

All well and good, maybe, the idea of a harder working congress, but....is that what's really going on? Is america suffering BECAUSE of congress working too little, or IN SPITE of the blessing of a lazy congress?

 Would america be better off, really, if congress spent more time legislating?  Will Rogers once commented that the invention of air conditioning was a great catastrophe, because it made it possible for congress to stay in session year round...thus giving it more time to damage the country.

So maybe the ad got it backwards. Maybe what we really need is for congress to work less, not more. And granted, they don't work much. Congressional four day weeks, half day work days,  frequent and extended vacations paid for by us the taxpayers, are legendary.

And just maybe its best that way. Maybe its best that they spend more time campaiging for reelection and more time vacationing than they do in committees and in full session passing laws and creating programs.. Hell, we have too many damned laws and government programs  as it is.

What congress really needs to do is dismantle the empire, return the nation to a republic, cut all spending across the board, and adjourn. And that wouldn't take much time.