The 38 % ers

To say that I'm utterly appalled by that blatant disrespect of President Obama's efforts to do what's right in the eyes of most Americans who voted for and agreed with him, by the GOP members of Congress would be a grossly understated fact. Even with the new members in both the House and Senate, their on the job performances have been lackluster at best thus far. Because we as a nation keep having the same debate/argument every couple of months it seems.

Now this time, it's in the form of the sequestration cuts which took effect on March 1st. As it stands at the moment these broad across the board cuts were designed to be bad, as a kind of stop gap measure to ensure that they don't actually have a chance to go into effect. Through the misguided logic of the Tea Party/GOP members, they seriously considered and then did nothing just to spite President Obama. Once sensible conservatives are being bamboozled by the far right over the issue of raising revenues (i.e. higher taxes), to offset government spending cuts by slashing the social safety net to bring down the national deficit.

This erroneous notion that letting the Bush Era Tax cuts expire for those individuals making over $400K or couples making over $450K a year as enough revenue to decrease the deficit. They're still not dealing with the tax loopholes that allow the wealthiest 1% keep their effective tax rate at a relatively low rate, non comparable to their annual income. In other words they don't pay their fair share and programs designed to help lower and middle class families do simple things like, send their kids to college (i.e. Pell Grants) get cut drastically.

Here's a fact I'll bet most people didn't know or were aware of, the average annual salary of members of Congress is $174K a year. While top Congressional leaders like John Boehner can earn around $220K a year. That fact in and of itself is not so surprising, what is surprising to me is that they're only in session an average of 130-140 days out of a 365 days a year which amounts to roughly 38% of the time. Which leads me to wonder what they are doing the other 220 plus days a year that they're not in session and why they get paid so much as well as the medical, dental and retirement benefits they enjoy at the taxpayers expense.

They should actually put in a five day, 40 plus hour work week like most of the hard working Americans they are paid to represent as part of their job / oath of office they hold. Most working Americans don't get paid if they don't actually show up for work, if we don't show up for work we get FIRED. Let alone get paid for not working almost 62% of the time. How about Congress take a 50% pay cut to compensate for the actual time they're at work or in session.

I'm betting they could come up with a minimum of 150 ways to justify their salaries, yet some GOP members are or might as well be corporate lackeys of powerful special interest groups the way the fight to preserve those tax loopholes for the one per-centers or big money campaign contributors. If the likes of GOP leaders or title holders (i.e. John Boehner, Mitch McConnell) is more aptly stated, would grow backbones and stand-up for what's right for average Americans as opposed to the greedy special interest groups, PAC/Lobbyists and/or high dollar campaign contributors. Basically selling out their personal integrity for the highest dollar amount or perception of power and/or influence.

The Republican Party and/or GOP is going to go the way of the dinosaurs useless they can rid themselves of the outlandish Tea Party fringe. Which would be shameful, since the inception of the Party which has at times within it's 150 something odd year history has done wonderful things for the betterment of the society as a whole. It's no wonder the Party brand has taken a hit since the mid term elections of 2010 with wingnuts like Ted Cruz (R-TX), Louie Gohmert (R-TX), and Steve King (R-IA) who will readily spew venomous lies and distortions of the truth as they see fit. Usually at the drop of a hat or within earshot of a TV News camera.

Congressional Republicans need for all of it's members in both the House and Senate to get their minds right and do what's in the best interest of the people who elected them to the office they currently hold, and not special interest groups, PAC's/Lobbyists or big money campaign contributors. Basically put revenue back on the table and pull the plug on these Sequestration Cuts before they go into full effect, plunging this fragile but steady economy backwards into another recession. Surrender the lie because you've been publicly called out in November of last year. The Public didn't buy it then or now, because President Obama is still the president for four more years.