Our Generous Legislators.

       Have you noticed how a fair number of Congressmen and Senators are giving up their salaries or donating them to charity while the government is shut down? Of course they're not doing it in privacy, but rather are being very public about it. Now I don't blame them for letting people know that our legislators in Washington "feel the peoples pain." Of course if they just say they aren't accepting the pay checks, then as soon as the shutdown ends, they'll get all that back pay, with interest. So really it's a hollow offer. Now if it goes to a charity, then it's gone, but they do get that tax deduction. Which will be substantial.
       All that is nice of them, but consider, they are the problem and only they can solve the problem and they can do that fairly easily by simply agreeing with each other and stop demanding something the other side will not and should not ever say yes to under these conditions. Now, why do I say that? Well, if our government accepts the idea that it's okay to hold hostage the American people to force the "other party" to accept some piece of legislation or some add-on to any legislation or suffer a catastrophic outcome for not knuckling under, then we would be headed for an eventual catastrophe for sure.
       No, the real problem is not that some folks are giving their pay away, and some folks are not giving their pay away, the problem is that they should all be receiving their pay because they're all doing the jobs they were hired to do. In other words, legislate, don't obfuscate. See, that's what they're not doing. In stead of legislating, which is what they were elected  to do, they're arguing over ideology. Ideology is a great subject to discuss and even argue about in a think-tank setting or between two teams of debaters. But in a setting that can't harm anyone. That's not what our legislators are doing. They've forgotten why they serve and who they serve. A long time ago.
       What's needed is a gentle reminder. If that doesn't work in short order, then we need to firmly but figuratively give them a swift kick in the pants. They work for you and I. They need to act that way.