Dear Congress: You're Fired!

Dear members of Congress: YOU'RE FIRED!

You are fired for gross incompetence. And you're fired for failing to do the job for which you were elected, and for which you are well paid.

One of the basic responsibilities of Congress is to pass a budget to fund government operations, and to pass said budget on time. This you have failed to do repeatedly. Passing continuing resolution after continuing resolution is not acceptable. And this time around, you failure to pass even a temporary spending bill has resulted in the shutting down of the federal government. Meantime, you continue to collect your fat paychecks, while federal employees are furloughed. They may or may not be paid retroactively. 

Each and every one of you should be fired. I hope retribution will come when the voters go to the polls in November and vote all incumbents out of office. 

We need to do several things to deal with this ongoing incompetence:

• Enact term limits for all elected officials. 
• Put members on Congress on the same pay scale, and provide the same benefits, as are provided to federal employees. 
• Prohibit the tacking on of unrelated legislation to any bill. Burying controversial legislative actions and proposals in other bills will be strictly prohibited. If a bill is worth considering and voting on, it should stand alone so it is obvious to everyone what the proposed legislation would do. The current budget disaster could have been avoided if the budget bill were considered on its own, rather than being wrapped up with legislation to fund Drump's wall with Mexico and action to extend DACA protections and to fund the CHIP program that provides medical service to low-income children.
• There should be a minimum amount of time allotted for members of Congress to read and understand each and every piece of proposed legislation. There will be no recurrences of what happened with the recent vote on revisions to the health care law, when Democratic members were not allowed to read the legislation or proposed amendments before voting.

There are many, many -- I dare say most -- Americans who are fed up with members of Congress acting like royalty. They should not receive pay or benefits not available to the federal workforce at large. They should have the same earned vWgacation time, and the same pensions, as federal employees receive. If members of Congress wish to settle sexual harassment or any other charges with individuals, those settlements should be paid for from the personal fortunes of the accused, not by the American taxpayers, as is currently the case. Congress no longer represents the public interest. Members of both houses of Congress are totally out of touch with the average working American. 

According to Newsweek magazine, "House Republicans issued a fact sheet about their new tax cut plan that referred to Americans earning $450,000 a year as “low- and middle-income”—even though that income level would put those taxpayers in the top 0.5 percent of all individual Americans."

Of course, these things will never happen, as the changes would have to be implemented by members of Congress. Whatever cost of living increase is given to federal employees should be given to members of Congress. As it now stands, Congress gets an automatic pay increase every year. Federal employees and retirees have received little to no increase some years.

America fought a war to free itself of royalty. It is time for another war -- done peacefully -- to free ourselves of our current crop of would-be royals.