The US House is on track to only be in session 97 days this year. That's 11 days fewer than the 108 days that the Do-Nothing Congress of 1948 was in session. House members decided to take off this entire week for St. Patricks Day. During the months of January and February, Congressmen logged a total of 47 HOURS in the Capitol. Congress has only been in session for 87 hours this month, the month when Congress gets the President's Budget.
If they stick to their current schedule -- including two weeks off in April, a week in May and July, plus all of August -- House members will spend 97 days in Washington this year.
http://www.usatoday.com/...
For both chambers, workweeks have become short in recent years. Roll call votes are seldom scheduled for Mondays or Fridays. In the House, they are often postponed until late Tuesday.
So, if votes are late on Tuesday, we're really talking about a two-day work week.
Critics contend Congress needs time to discuss important issues. "The Tuesday-to-Thursday work schedule is a detriment," says Rep. Dan Lungren, R-Calif., who served five terms in the House during the 1980s and returned last year.
OK. I think there are three crucial issues here.
- We're paying full-time salaries for part-time work. Congressmen make $162,500 a year. For a session of 97 days, rather than the 200 days most people work, that's a lot of money. Someone might say that the Congressmen are probably still doing political work on Mondays, Fridays, and weekends. I'm not impressed by the idea that I'm supposed to pay them a salary for the time they spend fundraising and going on golfing trips to Scotland.
- Congress has completely abandoned its executive oversight role. Congress hardly ever has hearings on anything anymore. And when there are hearings, if you watch CSPAN, you see a hearing where five congressmen on a committee of 30 people show up. It's comical to watch. You've got one congressman, then about 10 empty seats, and then another one.
- There is no debate on bills before they are voted on. Nobody knows what's in the bills. They're written by lobbyists, plopped down on the desks of Congressmen, who vote on the bills before anyone's read them. No wonder they only need 97 days to get their work done. The Federal Government is going to spend somewhere in the vicinity of $2.8 trillion this year. That's $2.8 million million. How can that amount of spending be scrutinized when Congress is hardly even in session during the Budget Process.
You often get a knee-jerk response from small-government types that having Congress is session fewer days is good because it leaves "less time to do damage." I don't think that theory is working so well though. The budget has grown from $1.8 trillion in 2000 to $2.8 trillion in 2006 while the number of days worked by the House has fallen from 140 in 2000 to 97 this year. Less oversight over the Executive Branch and less oversight over expenditures has made for bigger government not for smaller government.
It's important that voters remember who's to blame though. It isn't Congress' fault that this has happened. The Democratic members of the House have nothing to do with it. The Republicans make the calendar. They control the committees. They control the votes. It's the Republicans leadership which has chosen to make Congress a rubber-stamp of the President and lobbyist-written bills.