Professional Spenders

There have been some notices floating around Facebook lately about how much a congress-critter makes. According to those notices, once you’ve been elected to “public office” at the national level, your salary is guaranteed for the rest of your life. They’ve got the best unemployment and retirement package in existence.

Like many, that has bothered me a bit; but, I think I’ve finally gotten to understand it. You see, the only things that those congress-critters know how to do is tell other people what they can’t do and throw other people’s money at problems. So, once they are forcibly retired, they can’t get another job.

So, as unfair as it is, I guess there is some twisted logic in paying these professional spenders a lifetime severance package. Of course, that doesn’t justify such a big golden parachute, at least not in the mind of Archie Bunker and friends. Nevertheless, they’re probably worth at least $1.95 per year.

There’s nowhere in the private sector for a professional spender. While some may argue that purchasing agents spend their company’s money, there’s a huge difference between corporate spending and government spending. You see, with corporate spending, the company receives something in return; and that something they receive has to be of equal value to the money they spent.

On the other hand, congress doesn’t worry about receiving something for what they spend. After all, it’s tax money; something that no “public servant” in their right mind would even bother to think about. They don’t have to show a profit or any return on investment, so it’s easy to throw the taxpayers’ money at problems, real or perceived. It’s all an illusion anyway.

Perhaps we should rename Congress, “The Department of National Spending.” That would, at least, be a more accurate description of their function. We could then change the way in which they spend money, by eliminating the voting on bills, and let each congress-critter spend their “fair share” of tax revenue as they see fit.

Under this plan, each congress-critter would be allocated $5,000,000,000 per year to spend (that’s five billion, in case you got lost counting all those zeroes). The various departments within the government would compete for allocation of that money, lobbying the congress-critters to support their department. Of course, some departments would have the help of special-interest groups for their lobbying efforts, so lobbyists wouldn’t lose their jobs. Then the congress-critter decides where they which department they will give their five billion to.

The money could all be given to one department or could be divided in any way, between all the different departments of the government. If a particular congress-critter doesn’t like what a department is dong, they could withhold support from that department, attempting to force them to make cuts. If there’s a department which seems to be doing an outstanding job, congress could respond by giving them more money.

Of course, the Senate would try and claim that they have a right to allocate a greater amount of government spending than the House of Misrepresentatives. However, it’s actually the House which is supposed to control spending, not the Senate. So, this could be one place where the two houses could be at least equal.

Then there’s the President. He’s going to want to get in on the act as well. After all, the best thing about being president is having a greater ability to pass out money than Congress does. So, I suppose we’d have to allocate $100,000,000,000 (that’s one-hundred billion) to the president, for him to spread around.

If nothing else, this new plan might encourage better controls on government spending. Gosh, maybe someone would realize that the government needed to learn how to run efficiently; a word that they can’t even spell, let alone apply.

Another clear advantage of this program would be that congress-critters would have more free time in their schedules to get a real job. That way, they’d have something to fall back on, when they get out of office. Yep, learning how to flip burgers would be a real improvement over their current skills, which consist of lying, cheating and stealing. At least with flipping burgers, they could contribute something to society, instead of just taking from it.