I went to Emerson College. The motto of the college when I attended was "Expression is Necessary to Evolution." This is a laudable concept. But how much does expressing oneself cost? It depends on who you are. I sit here at my computer, unemployed, and "express" my opinions for free. It that sense, I am very cost effective.
We all know now about the poor representative from South Carolina, Joe Wilson who heckled President Obama during his address during a prime-time joint session of Congress. Desperate to fill a twenty-four news cycle, the media immediately latched on the lapse of decorum and then proceeded to connect it to every other instance of rudeness documented during the "summer break," of town hall meetings and mob psychology. Opponents of whatever possible health care reform bill you can think of have immediately distanced themselves from the hapless Wilson, who has reportedly just increased his election war chest by one million dollars. Of course, so has his Democratic opponent. At the same time, proponents have decided to open up a debate on Wilson's rudeness in the House. By now, you're thinking "Oh great, another blog entry about rude people." Nope. Let's talk finances.
Finances? What do finances have to do with Joe Wilson heckling the President? More than you might think. The debate about Wilson's behavior is decried as a waste of time and a distraction. They're right. It's also a waste of money. I did a few calculations trying to figure out how much money it takes Congress to pass non-binding and random resolutions that really don't get anything done but fill space on C-SPAN. These are just rough numbers folks. Finding actual accurate data has been difficult at best.
The "average" representative makes an annual salary of $174,000. In addition to this, a representative is granted at least $1,299,292 for expenses annually. These are just the base numbers. I'm not including the cost of the Capitol, infrastructure or maintenance. This means that per representative we spend $1,473,292 at a minimum annually. Annually, Congress meets approximately 160 days a year. If we estimate a work day of 8 hours, then our representatives cost a minimum of $1151 each per hour (approximately $19/minute) based on dividing the annual cost by the number of session hours. But Congress works more than just in session, right? That's not fair! Well, it was before. In 1789, representatives were paid $6.00 per day that Congress was in session. Between 1815-1817 Congress was on a $1500 annual salary before returning to a per diem of $8.00 per session day until 1855 where the annual salary was reenacted. This is just for one representative. We have 435 "voting" members in the House of Representatives alone.
According to general House rules, co-sponsors of a resolution get 40 minutes of discussion time to allocate, 20 minutes per sponsor. This, again, is a minimum. This means that per resolution we spend an average of $767 on each representative. You multiply this number and you realize that each resolution costs a minimum of $333,792 in representative expenses alone. Again, to be fair, I'm being conservative. I'm not counting the amount of paper, ink, reproduction costs for each of these resolutions.
So discussing Joe Wilson costs the American public $333,792 at a minimum. Since it's obviously beyond the 40 minute mark, it's costing us much more. So this "distraction" is costing us $8,265 every minute that it continues. So yes, it really is a waste. However, neither party has a monopoly on useless, time and money-wasting resolutions. We have designated "Buckle Up America Week," and successfully established that "Yankee Doodle" is from Fort Crailo in Rensselaer, New York. These are examples from the 103rd Congress. Guess which one was sponsored by which party. Does it really matter?
The mind boggles when you begin to multiply these costs by the number of resolutions "expressing," "congratulating," "recognizing," or creating "Awareness." When I searched "expressing" in the same Congress, I got over 202 resolutions. Again, just with the minimum numbers, the 103rd Congress spent at least $67,425,984 dollars "expressing" itself. And they're worried about a budget deficit, paying for health care reform or complaining about "taxing and spending" behavior? I wonder if anyone in the GAO is listening.
I think I'd like to present a bid to aid Congress. To save time, and money, I am willing to sacrifice myself for the mere price of $50,000 per useless resolution, a cost savings of $283,792 per expression. I won't even ask for an office or a staff. You want September 21, 2009 designated as "Official Penguin Dancing Day?" Done. Ka-ching!
Or even better, maybe we all want to express that Congress is wasting a lot of money doing remarkably stupid things. The cost: priceless.
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Not only are they wasting money, they are not even getting the facts right! Yankee Doodle is from Billerica, MA, not Fort Crailo in Rensselaer, New York.
ReplyDeleteSee Wikipedia excerpt:
It has been reported that the British often marched to a version believed to be about a man named Thomas Ditson, of Billerica, Massachusetts. Ditson was tarred and feathered for attempting to buy a musket in Boston in March 1775, although he later fought at Concord:
Yankee Doodle came to town,
For to buy a firelock,
We will tar and feather him,
And so we will John Hancock.
For this reason, the town of Billerica claims to be the "home" of Yankee Doodle,[7][8] and claims that at this point the Americans embraced the song and made it their own, turning it back on those who had used it to mock them. After the Battle of Lexington and Concord, a Boston newspaper reported: "Upon their return to Boston [pursued by the Minutemen], one [Briton] asked his brother officer how he liked the tune now, — 'Dang them,' returned he, 'they made us dance it till we were tired' — since which Yankee Doodle sounds less sweet to their ears."
p.s. Julie goes to the Thomas Ditson Elementary school.