Laziest Congress in history owes America a refund

When Congress adjourns on Dec. 8, as the Republican leadership now intends to do, the last thing every representative and senator should do before leaving Washington is write a check for 9,500 payable to the taxpayers of the United States.
The very least that the members of this do-nothing Congress can do as they abdicate their responsibility for one last time is surrender their pay for the last three weeks of the year.
Even a lame-duck Congress can limp its way through some of the work it is being paid for (at a salary of 3,175 a week, plus excellent benefits). And the 109th Congress, which was notoriously lax during those occasions that it actually found itself in session, had a lot of catching up to do.
Unenviable modern record
When it adjourns, this Congress will have spent less time in session than any Congress since 1948, the Congress that Harry Truman famously labeled as do-nothing.
And its record of achievement will be even more dismal.
The 109th Congress hasn't even taken care of its primary responsibility, to appropriate the funds necessary to run the government.
When Congress recessed in October so that its members could devote their energies to the important job of getting re-elected (a job that, like so many others, many failed) there were 460 billion in spending bills still needing attention. The operations of 13 Cabinet agencies -- every part of government aside from Defense and Homeland Security -- was still without a budget. Those bills were to have been passed by Oct. 1.
Temporary fix
But instead of coming back from the election break somewhat chastened, but ready to work, Congress had decided to pass temporary appropriation bills and leave it to the new Congress in January to do the hard budget work that was supposed to be done in 2006.
Part of this is political strategy. The budget bills that were working their way through the pipeline were fat with pork, and the Republicans, burdened with their new borrow-and-spend label, decided that they would rather be remembered for doing nothing than for running the national debt even higher. Also, the Republicans figure that if the new Democratic Congress is bogged down trying to pass overdue budgets, the Democrats won't be able to build any momentum toward fulfilling pledges made in the recent campaign.
That may be smart politics, but it's lousy governance, and it could backfire. It presumes that Americans are too stupid to recognize slackers for what they are.
It's going to be up to the new Congress to work for its 3,175 a week. That's about 80 an hour for a 40-hour work week. To do that, the 110th Congress is going to have to put in more time than its predecessor. In January and February of 2006, the House was in session just nine days. The Senate worked more than twice as hard, meeting 23 days.
And in case you're wondering, that works out to almost 1,200 a work day for a senator; 3,000 for a member of the House.