If a high school student council refused to approve a budget so that student activities had to be canceled — even as student leaders continued to pay themselves stipends — a school board would probably cancel the entire experiment in student democracy. But I can’t imagine high school students acting so immature.
The quote, and the title for this post I have appropriated, are both from Nicholas Kristof and this New York Times column In a sense the quote encapsulates what many Americans will be feeling if Congress shuts down the government - and thus more of the nation than most people realize - come the end of the day Friday. Kristof also uses the words of someone else to put this in perspective:
As the humorist Andy Borowitz wrote in a Twitter message: “That’s like eliminating the fire dept & sending checks to the arsonists.”
Kristof's is one of two important columns on the budget issue in today's papers that people should read. The other, by Matt Miller of the Center for American Progress, is called Ryan v. Obama - Is that all there is?
Kristof argues that it is unfair to pay Congress - whose salaries are not subject to the normal appropriations process - while essential workers are not getting paid. In fact, as we now know, the military will continue to say on the job but not receive their pay until there is either a Continuing Resolution or an appropriations bill to cover their pay, approved by both the House and the Senate, and signed by the President.
But let's back up. What I am about to say is not aimed at just one party, even though I find the Republicans and their obstreperousness far more the reason for our current problems than I do the Democrats, even with Blue Dogs and the likes of the Nelsons (and formerly Blanche Lincoln) in the Senate. Congress does NOT do its job. Continuing Resolutions may allow the government to stay open, but even that represents a failure to get signed into law appropriations bills.
In my not so humble opinion, if Congress cannot fulfill its constitutional duties, it should not receive its compensation. Until all appropriations bills are signed into law, Congress should not be paid. If they keep the government going by Continuing Resolution, their pay and only their pay should be withheld until proper funding for the entire fiscal year is a matter of law - only then should they receive pay for the time during a short-term CR, and without interest.
Should they allow the government to be shut down - either because of failure to pass any funding mechanism or failure to raise the debt ceiling - they should forfeit pay for the time the government is shut down, even as they should be required by law once the government is funded to provide ALL OTHER federal works with the pay they would have received had Congress done its job.
Tea Partiers be damned. If you do not like certain government programs, abolish them through the normal legislative process, not by playing games with people's lives and livelihoods.
Congress has constitutional responsibilities. If the Members and Senators cannot fulfill those Constitutional duties, why should they be paid at all?
Hell, if I step out of my role as a sensible teacher of government to high school students, a part of me would like to amend the constitution to allow recall of House and Senate members any time they fail to fulfill their responsibilities on a number of grounds. Of course, so long as Citizens United remains in effect that would be exceedingly dangerous. Still, at moments like what we face now, the thought of being able to get rid of people whose only intent is to tie the government into knots is very tempting.
I acknowledge my response is charged with raw emotion. My wife is a federal employee who will not be being paid, and given the current House there is grave doubt the Congress would follow previous precedent after a shutdown and give federal employees back pay. We acknowledge that within 2 weeks of the beginning of a shutdown we will not be able to be current on our bills. We are far from alone.
Many Federal contractors will face similar problems.
People will not be able to get Veterans' benefits, retirement pay, file for Social Security and Medicare. People who have already filed their returns might not receive their refunds from federal taxes. The list goes on and on.
In some places the lack of pay for federal employees and contractors will have a devastating effect on the local economy. We know that is true of parts of the DC metro area - revenues for the Metro system will drop precipitously. So will expenditures in hotels and restaurants around DC, as the tourists have little reason to come if all the monuments and museums are closed. But think of places like Martinsburg WV, with both an IRS center and a VA hospital. Think. of the communities around some military bases.
Remember, some of the Tea Partiers WANT to shut down the government. They think they can prove that we don't need much of the government. And after all, the proposed one-week CR - which would fully fund the military for the year but would cut $12 billion from non defense spending for the rest of the year - is another attempt to ram down the throats of the American people policies for which there is not even plurality support in the country as a whole, and perhaps not even in their individual districts.
We do have to get our government finances on a firm basis. That can only happen if the rich pay their fair sharee. Matt Miller points out on spending that Ryan wants to spend a smaller percentage of GDP on the government than did Ronald Reagan, and that was without facing the additional costs those of my generation - the Boomers - represent especially in health costs. One might also note that simply restoring the top Reagan tax rates would provide a significant boost to government revenues.
If the Republicans think Reagan was so wonderful, let's restore those of his policies that affect our finances, in spending and in taxation.
And if Congress cannot even do that, if the rest of us are going to suffer because they cannot do their job, then they should suffer as well.
Perhaps someone can draft the Constitutional language necessary and we can demand that all in Congress sign on to it, and pummel the hell out of anyone who refuses to?
Hey, I can dream, can't I?
Or when DC can no longer pick up garbage, because the latest interpretation of what a shutdown would mean is that they cannot as an entity Constitutionally supervised by Congress even spend their own funds for local government functions, perhaps everyone in DC should simply take their own garbage and deposit in in the yards of those Congressmen and Senators who refuse to let the government function.
Kristof's column asked a simple question: Why Pay Congress?
If they cannot fulfill their responsibilities, if they are going to make the rest of us suffer, why indeed?