US Capitol. The building is available for sublet for 8 months next year. (Photo credit: rpongsaj)
The Republican leadership of the House of Representatives has released the work schedule for the House in 2014, which reduced the number of days the Congress will be in session to 113, compared to 126 days in 2013. The change in schedule means that for at least 252 days in 2014, there would be no legislative gridlock in Washington. Here are 10 reasons why House leaders shortened their work schedule.
1) Congressmen understand the plight of millions of American part-time workers, and wanted to show their support by cutting their own hours.
2) The change in schedule will give Republican Representatives more time to complain that Barack Obama is spending way too much time on vacation.
3) Members of Congress noticed that the more they work, the lower their approval rating gets, and decided that there was only one way to reverse the trend.
4) 239 days was barely enough time for the Representatives to spend their $174,000 annual salary.
5) By working 226 days during 2014, House can do two years worth of work, and wouldn’t need to come to work until January 2016 at all.
6) By not telling their spouses about the reduction in scheduled workdays from 126 to 113, Congressmen get 13 unaccounted days which they need to use for their extramarital affairs.
7) Representatives need a lot of time to run the campaign for the 2014 election, so that once they get re-elected they can immediately begin campaigning for 2016 election.
8) By cutting work hours for all Representatives to less than 30 hours per week, Republican leaders are trying to circumvent the Obamacare requirement that all full-time employees must have health insurance.
9) Meetings with constituents now takes longer than before, because the legislator’s staff has to first vet the constituents to ensure only those who agree with the Representative will be allowed to attend.
10) The Republican leadership can safely reduce the number of workdays, because most Republican member of Congress can complete all of their work in just 10 minutes in just three easy steps: a) writing a note “I vote against whatever Obama is for”, b) signing it, and c) handing the note to the House Speaker John Boehner.
A personal note: I received a notification informing me that two days ago was the 3rd anniversary of me getting sucked into a giant black hole named WordPress. Are there any parents reading this? Is it normal for a 3-year old to still be unable to count beyond 10?
List of X 
Reblogged this on The ObamaCrat™.
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Thank you for the reblog!
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U R brilliant as usual.
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3 years! Awesome! Happy blogiversary! 🙂
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Thank you! 18 more years and I can have a drink to celebrate!
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There’s no minimum drinking age for blogs. Yet. Drink up! 😉
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Damn it. I’ve wasted three years!!!
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Love it – especially #10!!!!
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Thank you! Seriously, I don’t understand why they even bother coming in to work, if they only vote that way. A trained monkey can do this.
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Amen. You are totally right.
I won’t say more than that, because talking about those jerks makes me morph from “decent human being” to “raving lunatic” in about 2.8 seconds.
But … your post made me laugh, even though the subject is tragic.
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I have to make fun out of these tragic subjects, otherwise I risk turning into a raving lunatic myself.
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Well, at least there would be two of us! 😉
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Did they freakin cut their paychecks too???? Feels blood pressure boiling! GAH!
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Kittens! Puppies! Baby pandas! Baby unicorns… baby rainbows…
Now that I hopefully lowered your blood pressure, no, they can’t legally change their own salary, only the next Congress’. Though, no one is forcing them to take all of their current salary.
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Yeah, I know they control their salary. During the cf known as the shutdown, members valiantly donated or refused their law given salaries. Another ploy to say “Vote for me. I declined my salary during the cf that I helped create. ” I can see the self promotion when they say that they didn’t vote for a salary increase. Um…yes you did, you sneaks.
Kittens…puppies…baby pandas…breathe.
Happy anniversary, BTW.
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That was really generous of these Congresspeople to donate the salary they received during the shutdown, considering that they received a paycheck on 9/30, a day before the shutdown, and the next one was on 10/31, after the shutdown was over…. ok… baby pandas…baby pandas… baby pandas stat! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XM0Ms5ga7cc …. awwww… look at them, they’re just as useful as Congresscritters, only much cuter,…
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Number three’s a classic 🙂
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I really think that if they stop working, their approval rating will improve. It worked for G.W.Bush.
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I’d say the less they work the less nonsense they can cause. How considerate of them to spare us some 🙂
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Yes, it’s not like they are going to do much besides voting 20-30 times to repeal Obamacare.
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ALL of these are spot ON..Which makes it tough for me to pick a fave this time! But I shall choose #10..That in a NUTshell is about all they’ve done since Day 1 of President Obama’s terms..And the ballsy thing? They said, out loud! , that is what their goal was..In other countries? Folks would be running through the streets hopping pissed about it..OR at the least setting about finding a way to change the political scene..When I ran for a political office now a bit ago? I ran on the slogan @ Your VOTE is your VOICE..And as people like you & Obamacrat(yay!) have proven; there are indeed other progressive things we CAN do..Getting the word out is so highly important..And as usual I thank & appreciate the time/effort you take with your 10Lists…You know I’m long winded..I could say alot more on this topic..But I’m preparing for Mass(church) & I don’t want to get heated..But in parting I can help but add..In NO form or fashion is it right nor logical for any congress to have the ability to ..a. change their work hours (wtH???? ) b. change their salary..Power does crazy things to some people & this is positive-proof of that. I vote that any congress shall have the same work WEEK as the rest of us working folks. 2 days off on weekends / 8-5ish/and work 24/7 when they’re deadlocked. WE pay them (more than they deserve) to run this country for the people…The fringe benefits they get is ridiculous too! But I won’t get started on that..Last but not least …Congrats on your 3 yr W.P., blogversary!!!!!! So very glad/blessed to have connected with you.
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Legally, Congress cannot change their salary – they can change it for next Congress, although about 80%-90% of them will get re-elected and will be in that next Congress. But apparently they can change their schedule all they want, which means they can work fewer hours for the same money, which is, in effect, a raise.
I would kind of like the House to work more days, but, on the other hand, I don’t really care, since they are not getting anything done in the time they have now. They have passed just 46 bills in 2013 that ended up being signed by the president, including such landmark legislation as specifying the size of baseball commemorative coins and renaming an air traffic control center in New Hampshire. (https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/browse?status=28,29)
And I am really glad you’ve found me! Thank you!
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Virtual high 5^
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Reblogged this on Berna's Vibe~The Way I See IT and commented:
Sharing one of X’s best 10Lists..Worth sharing indeed!
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Maybe they’re just trying to set us on the path to where we outsource legislative duties to some office in India?
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They should all outsource this work to Hugo. He’s white, male, and has this fake “Trust me” look. That’s pretty much all every politician needs.
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I think #10 may be sadly spot on…
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I wish they could really do that, so that we wouldn’t have to look at some of these faces at all.
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This makes me want to run for Congress.
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Yeah, me too. With this schedule, there’s time for family and for blogging, and pretty much everything else.
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Precisely.
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Happy Anniversary X. 😀
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Thanks, Mcnorman.
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I vote for you and #10.
Congrats on 3 years.
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Thank you. In case I run for anything in Texas, I feel much better that I can at least count on your vote.
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You can count on mine. You’d never get elected of course, but what the hell?
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Not if I run as a Republican. I can mimic their thinking pretty well, don’t you think?
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True. Try the sneak attack. Run as a Republican then proceed to act like the opposite. It’s worked for a lot of politicians.
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Just talk crazy as batsh*t, half of Texas will vote for you. Get your father to talk even crazier and the other half will line up to vote for you also.
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I guess I’m halfway there already, because my father is a bona fide Tea Partier.
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#11, like a tree that falls in the middle of forest with no one to “hear”, no one will notice since no work remains no work however numerically delineated.
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The government shutdown will probably be the crowning achievement of this session of Congress. (thanks to which, if a tree fell in a national park, there was literally no one there to hear it)
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*deep breath*
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I can feel your frustration. Please watch this, it might help: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XM0Ms5ga7cc
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Thanks, I needed that! 😀
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Thank you! Here is a sweet treat back:
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Thank you, but a video of a rain is actually making me feel worse today 🙂 I got up at 5:40am this morning to watch the partial solar eclipse at sunrise, but couldn’t see it because of the rain. I think I’ll go watch the baby pandas again 🙂
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Ha ha ha ha! I’m sorry you missed the eclipse; I’m sure there will be others. Bless your heart. 😉
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I think most Republicans these days have not progressed past the age of two. “No” is their favorite word and they’re also really good at kicking and screaming till they get their way. And if they get in trouble, they just blame a boogeyman. Once when my daughter was a toddler she told me the devil messed up her room. So you know, Obama did all that stuff they did. Makes perfect sense.
If you don’t do what I want right now I’m taking my ball and shutting down the government!
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Ironically, they also refer to themselves as “the party of personal responsibility” while blaming everyone else. An average two-year old child is not able to perform such feats of mental gymnastics. Otherwise, your description seems accurate.
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You forgot: Because they are lazy dicks…
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Not really. I actually tagged this post with “lazy bastards”. Except I didn’t use the word “dick” which I mainly use for former Vice President Cheney.
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I should have known that wouldn’t slip past you.
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Congrats on 3 awesome years of enlightening the masses, while entertaining yours truly and millions of others!
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Thank you! But it’s really more like hundreds, at best 🙂 At the rate I’m going, I won’t get to entertaining millions until year 2350 or so.
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# 8 – yeah!!!! Congrats on the blogaversary! I passed my 3rd a couple of weeks ago. Too bad I didn’t know about it ahead of time or we could have cohosted a big party.
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Thank you! I had no idea we almost share a blog birthday. We could always coordinate the 4th or 5th birthday party, though. 🙂
Oh, and since you’ve been dealing with Obamacare a lot recently, you might enjoy my two previous posts on the Obamacare website. , and
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I know it would be better to laugh than to cry, but I’m having a hard time finding the humor in Obamacare. If I don’t start producing some funny soon, WordPress is going to remove me from the Recommended Humor Blog list and stick me on the Recommended Bitter Rantings of a Disillusioned Crone list.
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Happy anniversary, X! The first thing I thought after I hit my third anniversary was, How in the hell is it possible I’ve been blogging this long? And why don’t I know my kids’ eye color?
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How do you not know your kids’ eye color? You don’t even have to leave your blog to check, because you have the pictures of them there (and now video on GoJulesGo) 🙂
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Hee hee – I like #6 the best
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Well, it is important to have the “me (and my mistress) time”. And some Congressmen also need a couple of days to tweet pictures of their junk to random people.
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All so true
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Number 6 is the best of crop. Fucking lazy ass politicians will use the extra time to scam money from lobbyists probably.
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You just need 59 other reasons and number 6 could become number 69.
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But then of course you would need a new blog name…with higher roman numerals, and the republicans could never find you. So maybe that isnt the best idea.
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Yes, List of LXIX just doesn’t sound that well.
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69 would be a great number for a count of ways how Congress is screwing us.
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Wow, interesting indeed. I’ve read so much ‘man on the street’ opinion about American politics and Obamacare, it’s really interesting. Your no. 8 is probably spot-on – well spotted by you. Great post.
I do have a child! i can’t remember when my son learned to count, I really can’t. I suppose you’ve tried singing it? Or offering food items – like one jelly bean, two, three, four in piles and if the child can count the right pile, they get it? I don’t know! Or carrots! I’m not sure I’d be worried yet, as I expect the school system should teach this – however, I remember being surprised when about age 8 my son didn’t know the months of the year. That was a surprise to me.
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I don’t actually have children of my own – three years is the age of this blog, and I was making fun of myself for writing every post as a list of 10. I can see how this could be confusing for someone who is reading this post first. 🙂
When I have my own children, I will definitely try out your idea, so I hope I don’t forget it by then.
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For a three-year old, counting to ten actually makes you a bonafide prodigy.
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Well, then I’ll start worrying if I’m still stuck in counting to 10 five years from now.
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That’s only eight years total, so you should be able to keep track.
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As long as I don’t go past 10 years, I should be ok 🙂
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