The Wrongologist

What’s
Wrong Today:

From PolicyMic: The number of
laws passed by Congress last year was fewer than at any point since 1947. And
to make matters worse, Congress will get 239 “vacation days” in 2013.

The
figures in the chart below are from the House Clerk’s office:

The calendar
for Congress’s first session (ending this December) consists of 126 days,
leaving members of Congress with 239
days of potentially free time. Of course, they need time to raise money and meet & greet constituents.

House
Majority Leader Eric
Cantor’s calendar
shows the days the House will be in session in a light brown shading, without a
single 5-day work week.  Check out the month of August, where they are in
session for 2(!) days.

According
to Ezra Klein, they’ll leave
town Friday and they won’t be back till Sept. 9. He seems very ok with their work schedule. According to the Monkey Cage, the Republican
Conference in the House has released instructions to its members on how to
spend their summer vacations. It doesn’t involve much frivolity, unless one’s
idea of holiday heaven involves writing (or at least cutting-and-pasting)
op-eds, pumping gas, holding meetings with angry people and, most broadly, talking
up how much they hate Washington.

The
Conference helpfully prepared a 31 page
booklet called  “Fighting
Washington for All Americans”, for its members. GOP Conference Chair Rep.
Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) writes that:

But, only 12%
of the public seems
to agree with her.

Fighting
Washington
consists of a detailed to-do list for the summer “district work period.” It
gives members a sample op-ed to place in local papers, provides details on how
to hold town hall meetings (hint: you should “reserve a space that is large
enough to accommodate the expected number of attendees…” and “take many
photographs and videos”), and suggests a list of issues members might hammer
home at home: the economy, the excesses of Obamacare, the IRS. Also:
“While touring, help constituents pump gas and bag their groceries where
possible.”

According
to Roll Call, House Democrats have
their own toolkit, but its not called “Fighting Washington”. And they have a predictable counterpoint: “Still no jobs, no
budget agreement, no solution from House Republicans, and no willingness to
even sit down and negotiate,” reads one Democratic talking point.

Democratic
leaders encourage members to use online and social media tools to “amplify
events” surrounding their “Economic Agenda for Women and Families,” the party’s
multi-point policy platform unveiled earlier this month. “56% of social network
users are women,” they point out. But they don’t urge caucus lawmakers to affix
a hashtag to every talking point. Rather, they suggest orchestrating intimate
roundtable discussions and forums aimed at helping constituents understand the
downside of the sequester. Such events should feature a “real person” — a
furloughed army official, for instance, or a senior citizen robbed of Meals on
Wheels benefits.

So the
only difference is whom they’re pointing the finger at for breaking Washington.

Now,
here’s the thing. None of this by either party is necessarily bad advice. But
the people receiving it are incumbents and their staffs. Are they really the
kinds of people who need to be told to reserve a hall when holding a meeting? That they should pump gas and bag groceries? Are they auditioning for the crummy jobs that remain in America after the failure of their non-policies to create jobs?

What kind
of people are we electing to the House?

A
month ago, many of us thought that this week on the calendar might see the
completion (or at least some progress) on key issues before Congress departed for its
August recess. For instance, the assumption was that the House might have
accomplished something on immigration reform, or that Democrats and Republicans
would have worked to resolve some of the budget issues. But as the Congress is about
to leave Washington (and not return until after Labor Day), there’s no real activity.
Resolve the impasse over the farm bill? Forget about it. Indeed, despite
record-low disapproval ratings, Congress is simply laying the groundwork for
the fights in the Fall on all of these issues.

With
a straight face, the House GOP, which has done more to break Washington than
any other Congress in history, is going home to whine about how broken
Washington is, and then beg to be sent back to Washington so they can continue
to break it even more, so that they can then return home and rail about how
broken Washington is. Sweet, sweet logic.

Summer
Vacation Time? Congress out of Session?

It must be Executive Order Season!