All Pay, No Work

  

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor is rewarding the least popular House in history by cutting their number of scheduled work days from 126 in 2013 to 113 in 2014.
The 2014 House calendar reveals where the repugican majority’s priorities really are. House repugicans are scheduled to be in session for only 12 days in each of the first three months of the year. The “busy month” for House repugicans will come during the usually slow July political season.
This schedule is all about giving House repugicans the time to campaign in their districts and fund-raise. They will be on vacation for the entire month of August, in session for 10 days in September, and will only be working for a laughable two days during the month before the 2014 election.
House repugicans will still get their same $174,000 salaries for doing even less work. In fact, they will be getting a pay increase per day in session over what they made in 2013. Going strictly by the calendar, members of the House made $1,385.95 per legislative day. In 2014, that number will increase to $1,589.32. Members of the House are responsible for doing more than just being in session, but this House has already revealed itself to be the least productive in history. Instead of voting on legislation, members of the House spend 30%-70% of their time fundraising.
This schedule is more typical behavior from a repugican caucus that is so selfish that members aren’t capable of agreeing with each other to pass even the most basic legislation. John Boehner likes to talk about the People’s business, but by calendar design many members of the current House majority are only interested in serving their own interests.
Boehner and Cantor are already thinking about cutting down the number of scheduled days in session for the rest of 2013, because they can’t think of an agenda to vote on for the rest of the fall.
That attitude of this House was typified by Speaker Boehner on CBS’s Face The Nation when he said, “Well, Bob, we should not be judged on how many new laws we create. We ought to be judged on how many laws we repeal.”
The American people deserve better. They deserve representatives who will vote. They deserve representatives that actually show up for work. They deserve a House that tries to pass legislation instead of seeing their mission as obstruction and destruction.
It’s time to throw Boehner and his group of lazy House bozos out of the majority in 2014.