Nice work, if you can get it

As we close out another year, it’s time to take stock of what has been accomplished. In your own life you may have managed to finally paint the mudroom or land a big contract. Maybe you paid off your car or got the promotion you were hoping for. If you have kids, they may have moved on to the next grade of even out of the house and on to their own lives. Yes, year’s end is a time to reflect on battles won and lost and prepare for battles to come. Of course, if you are a member of the 113th U.S. Congress, year’s end will just be another one of your 238 days off. Actually, Congress was set to exclude 239 days from their work calendar, but those stalwart representatives of the people decided to hang tough and work an extra day. No need to thank them. They are just doing their job.

To put that into perspective, weekends (104 days), plus three week’s vacation (15 days), and time off for Christmas, New Year’s, Easter, etc. (about eight days), is only 127 days. That’s about what most of us get off in a year. That’s also the total number of days our 113th congress is scheduled to work. And they get a base salary of $174,000, plus all the perks.

According to the Statement of Disbursements, published each year by the House, those perks include an “allowance” that runs between $1.5 million to $2 million for things like office expenses. You know, staplers, ink cartridges, thrones, etc. They also get full retirement benefits at age 62, but only after putting in five grueling years of service.

Then there is the franking privilege. That means Congress gets free mail to keep in touch with the folks back home. It also means free campaign mailing. This free mail thing must be working out pretty well for them because congresspersons have a recidivism, umm, I mean, re-election rate of 90 percent.

During the 2012 elections, the Huffington Post reported that the cost to the taxpayer for franking sank to an all time low of $11.3 million. That’s right, that’s just what we paid last year for our representatives to tell us what a bang up job they are doing. What’s more, that number was apparently a source of pride for our Congress.

In that same article it was reported that some of our “less government, more rugged individualism” Tea Party brethren franked themselves into a frenzy. Rep. Joe Heck of Nevada spent $319,251. He was followed closely by representatives Bobby Schilling of Illinois at $293,021 and Tennessee’s Scott DesJarlais with $282,385. One can only guess the number of “don’t tread on me” flag pins that went slithering through the mail.

Of course, being a congressperson is a very demanding and stressful job. That 127 days must take a toll. This year the toll is 55 bills passed into law. That means our 113th is setting records. No other Congress in the history of the republic has managed to squander 127 days so unashamedly and with so little work product. You have to go all the way back to 2011 to find the second least productive Congress with 62 bills passed that year. By contrast Harry Truman’s “do-nothing Congress” of 1948 managed to pass 900 bills.

To be fair, it takes time to put a bill together and present it for a vote. And these guys only have 127 days to do it. And when you take into account the 47 times the House voted to repeal Obamacare, it’s a wonder they had time to do anything at all.

The People’s House of 2013 did manage to accomplish some things of importance. They renamed an interstate bridge and at long last we have finally regulated the size of commemorative baseball coins. Those things don’t just happen on their own. Through inaction they also managed to shut down the government, take us frighteningly close to default, and kick millions of children off food stamps and Head Start. To quote Speaker of the House John Boehner: “We’ve done our work.”

If “their work” is “no work at all,” than Speaker Boehner is right on the money. Next year is an election year and Congress is expected to cut back on its crushing workload. They need more time for campaigning, you know. That hectic 126-day schedule will shrink to 113 days. Imagine what they can’t accomplish under those time constraints.

With that in mind, the second half of the 113th positioned to make history. They could do more than produce bills that have no chance at all of becoming law. They could become really insulting and follow the lead of states like Texas by finding ways to suppress the votes of women and minorities. Or states like Virginia, whose Republican candidate for Attorney General proposed legislation that would make it mandatory for all women who have suffered a miscarriage to report it to the proper policing authorities. What the heck; if you don’t intend to produce anything that has a chance of passing it gives you incredible freedom. Why not revisit this Law of Gravity thing. Why should we cede our sovereignty to some 17th century egghead?

Yes, the 113th could really accomplish great things, but they’d better move fast. It seems some of these examples run afoul of the Constitution, if not the laws of physics. But what’s a little thing like rational thought when it comes to your own political agenda?

Of course, John Boehner’s 113th Congress will also have to take time out for tedious day-to-day governance. They will probably have a few dozen more votes to repeal Obamacare and then there’s all that mailing to be done. There could even be a pay raise to deal with. Frankly, I don’t see how they do it.

Chuck Legge is a freelance political cartoonist who lives in Sutton. His political cartoons, “The World According to Chuck,” are printed in the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman and other newspapers around the state and nation.