Legislating As A Profession.

Have ya ever given thought to running for congress? Well let me tell you right here and now, it ain't all wine and roses. There's a lot of hard work that goes with that job. Maybe not so much actually serving, because they are often out of session, which means lots of days and weeks off from the "not all that hard" work of legislating. After all, how hard can it be to disagree with the other side and not get anything done. At least not get anything done until the very last minute before you go back home for some well deserved time off. The thing is, they get all the work done, all the heavy lifting done in a couple of days. They could actually only show up two days before the close of the term and still get all the work done. Now you may wonder why we pay them so much if they only really need to work a couple of days a year. The thing is though, they need the extra time to attend fund raisers for the campaigns. They need a lot of time. In fact they need the whole year and barely have time to do any legislating. But speaking of pay, I just read that way back in 1984, the median average net wealth of a member of the House of Representatives was $280,000 adjusted for inflation, while the same average for all Americans was $20,600, again adjusted. But in 2010, the average house member had a worth of $725,000 and we Americans had an average of, are you ready for this? $20,500. That's right, $100 less. And none of these figures include our homes. So if your congressman is worth three quarters of a million, plus his home, and you're worth twenty grand, how well does your congressman understand your needs and concerns? If he has to spend most of his, or her, waking hours scraping together donations to run his campaign in order to stay in office, how would he have time to find out what you need? He's too busy trying to fill his own needs. You think he can find out when he campaigns and shakes a few hands and kisses a few babies, if they still do that? No, his speech writers write his speeches, and his election committee plans his agenda. He has no idea what you really need. Oh he reads the paper. Most likely the Wall Street Journal or a national progressive paper, and he may even get the local papers delivered to his office so his staff can read them. I guess that, short of running for the office yourself, the only way for people to be able to honestly represent their constituents is to be one. And the only way they can do that is to have term limits. So they don't have to campaign any more. A side benefit of that would be they wouldn't be beholden to wealthy contributors and big corporations. I don't mean the corporations couldn't or shouldn't be allowed to be heard, it's just that they shouldn't be allowed to be heard instead of the people. Have a Happy New Year.