Things have come to a sorry pass when even a new congressman can't turn a constituent complaint about the economy into an opportunity to reel off seven or eight of the best about hardworking Americans and the fat cats in Washington wasting their tax dollars. Don't the parties conduct basic training seminars for freshmen anymore?
2: "You'll get nothing and like it!"
I can imagine that living on that amount of money with six kids would feel strained, but by having so many kids, they chose to value a big family over being financially comfortable. Which is fine, but then I'm not inclined to be sympathetic when they complain about their financial strain. Especially when I read that they have two houses.
That's about 22K/yr per person in the household supposing his wife doesn't have an income. Not great if you're an adult (though most of us have done it) but those kids must be spending a lot on hookers and blow.
You know, that all is a great argument for birth control. So much cheaper than six children!
That the congressman and his wife were both (!) on MTV"s The Real World suggests that the wise men who select candidates to support ought to reconsider the value of celebrity. My meager exposure to reality television leads me to suspect that the reality star's core competency -- the ability to make anything about him/her and hold a grudge about it* -- isn't quite the same as a good retail politician's ability to make the issue of the day about his or her immediate interlocutor. "... And that's why I told the President that closing the Air Force base in Nowheresville, Nowheresylvania would be another step toward socialism. Next question!"
* It's kind of funny that reality television and blogging have matured together.
By most measures, I think members of congress are quite underpaid (of course many, especially in the Senate have significant augmentation from other sources). I think about $400-500K with much stricter laws against later lobbying etc. would be appropriate (not that I really know how to make that work). It's a little like the unpaid internship thing.
From the comments on a WP story about a proposed tax increase on the wealthy in D.C.:
What a surprise - Gray hikes taxes. I have one suggestion: I work 80 hours a week in a stressful difficult job. I am trying to pay down educational loan and save up enough money to put down a down payment on a house. I make more than $200K, but the idea that I am wealthy is preposterous. Please chang this story to reflect this fact.
The wife does not have an income:
(October 2009) Releease of her book, "Stay Home, Stay Happy: Ten Secrets to Loving At-Home Motherhood".From her imdb biography.
That was after her unsuccessful audition for the Hasselbeck part on The View, btw.
11: That's not quite "For sale: baby shoes, never used," but it's pretty sad.
The thing about this meme is that $175,000/yr for a family of 8 isn't enough money to do without basic government benefits that should be available to everyone. You can't send 6 kids to private school on that income, not unless you were really scraping by on next to nothing for other expenses. And where would this guy be if he had to buy health insurance privately? Never mind that he's assuredly depending on middle class-specific benefits like federally-backed housing loans and property tax credits. This is what the Tea Baggers are willfully ignoring: the vast majority of entitlements and other government programs that they are railing against are there because they benefit the middle and upper-middle classes, sometimes exclusively.
the vast majority of entitlements and other government programs that they are railing against are there because they benefit the middle and upper-middle classes, sometimes exclusively
You mean to say that they're not railing against those entitlements, just against those other ones that benefit the lower-middle and lower classes. I take it.
7: It's kind of funny that reality television and blogging have matured together.
Say more?
What level of expenses does this guy get on top of his salary? If he has to find wages for an assistant in Washington and a constituency office, plus accommodation in Washington and fares to and from his District, then $175k isn't enough to provide a service to his electors if he's single with the lifestyle of a penitent monk. So what is somebody else paying for, and how much?
15: Personality, subjectivity, feuds, grudges, new norms that "everyone knows," something that Umberto Eco said about populism obviating the legislative and judicial functions.
16: US congresspeople are not expected to pay their congressional staff's salaries out of their personal earnings.
18. And additional apartment? Fares?
17: There are things in that list I can find objectionable, but other things I don't. I defy you to find feuds or grudges in the blogging of Steve Benen or, really, Kevin Drum. Personality and subjectivity to the extent that we're reading a single writer, after all, but those are features, not bugs. In any case, the blogs I mention are not "all about me".
They need to pay for housing in DC themselves. No government paid dorm for them, unlike in Poland. Not sure how travel home on weekends works in practice.
19: yes and yes (out of pocket).
21: they do a lot of official travel on the backs of others, too.
I remember reading that Texas congressmen are paid wildly little - like 25K - and allowed/expected to use lobbying dollars/campaign contributions for home and living expenses. In other words, it's a plausible Republican philosophy that representatives should not be supported by tax dollars.
To the OP's original point
Anyone, like Congressman Duffy, who's feeling poor at $175K per year, and doesn't get from there to a belief that government is desperately necessary to provide help and security for people who are genuinely poor and lower-income, has a completely broken sense of empathy.True, and it goes toward the fact that the truly well-off have managed to pit the rest of us against one another.
Conclusion one for Duffy et al. might be that a governmental safety net is essential for the poor and disadvantaged, but conclusion two should certainly be that these arrangements are ultimately unsustainable as well for those who don't necessarily need food stamps, Head Start, and so on. The second conclusion is just as important as the first.
but conclusion two should certainly be that these arrangements are ultimately unsustainable as well for those who don't necessarily need food stamps, Head Start, and so on.
I don't follow this sentence. Do you mean that safety-net programs are inadequate by themselves and need to be supplemented with income-disparity-narrowing?
Inadequate, that is to say, in concept rather than in quantity.
The District does have high property taxes, like 10%. It's expected to provide a lot of city government services, but so much of the land is tax-exempt, because it's owned by the Feds. Plus, there's a good chunk of poor people. The Feds consider having prisoners put up in Federal prisons (instead of having the District maintain one in Virginia--which has since been developed) to be about what they should have to contribute.
Just echoing that being in congess really does effectively require two real homes; given how expensive housing is, that's a big hit.
My main point, though, is that it's probably not very hard to maintain the cognitive dissonance. You're struggling, of course, but the lucky duckies at 30k have everything covered by government handouts, so that's 30k on champagne and hookers.
I thought I read that his second home was a lake house in upstate Wisconsin?
There was an endearing NYT Magazine story a couple of years ago about a congressional flophouse -- four or five congressmen (I remember Chuck Schumer, don't recall who else) living on cereal and takeout and sleeping on foldout couches in a small townhouse. I realize that having found this endearing marks me as a sucker.
I did, I did, I did read a puddy-that!
Anyone, like Congressman Duffy, who's feeling poor at $175K per year, and doesn't get from there to a belief that government is desperately necessary to provide help and security for people who are genuinely poor and lower-income, has a completely broken sense of empathy.
I think most Republicans have a broken sense of empathy. But I think the mental gymnastics described above is fairly simple: "My family needs travelling/leisure/security and so those people just don't have the same expenses.
re: 29
I just realised I don't know what that percentage means. 10% of what? Per what?
The UK has a different system, so I'm curious.
Ah, googling it looks like it really is just a percentage of the value of the property, per annum? Can 10% be right?
From this table of rates, that looks like an intentionally punitive rate only applying to "unimproved or abandoned" property. It's actually 0.85% for residential property (with the first $67,500 untaxed if owner-occupied) and 1.65% or 1.85% for commercial property.
I like how these tax-rate tables recall the time when "percent" meant "per hundred [units of currency]," so one might refer to an interest rate as "£5 per centum per annum."
re: 39
I was going to say, because 10% of the value of the property I live in would be more than I earn.
Some members of Congress sleep in their offices in DC. Duffy's apparently one of them - see here.
He also appears to own a cabin in Wisconsin worth the same as his 5-bedroom house, though.
re: 42
Yes, and live in London, which has a fairly demented price to income ratio. But still, even when I lived in Oxford and could have just about afforded to buy the flat I rented, 10% of property values per year would be about 10-15 times actual local tax rates.
45: Well, people aren't paying 10% of property values per year in property taxes here either, in any event.
10 percent annually of the value of property is an absurd rate that couldn't be tolerated by most property owners in a second and would spark revolution (or mean that no one would buy a house). $20,000/year in a $200,000 home? Please.
BG was just putting out an unclear figure, and one doubts she meant 10% of property value per year.
... and regardless of whether it reflects sensible all-things-considered budgeting, sleeping in your office--given how much time Reps need to spend in DC--is going to make you *feel* poor.
Which is why they should have dorms, like in Poland. These need not be sheer bunk-bed, cinder-block style rooms; they can have what we used to call suites in college, so that there's still a separate living room and furniture and so on, and everyone can have his (her) own suite, but they're all in group buildings.
Is that outrageous?
I'll cut the kneecaps out of the first person to say something along the lines of, "did someone hear something just now?".
I remember reading that Texas congressmen are paid wildly little....
...for working 4 months out of every two years.
It's important to remember that some states have full-time legislatures while others do not.
I don't really have strong opinions about the pay for legislators; there are so many other factors that already result in self-selection by people rich enough or well-connected enough to keep themselves flush regardless of pay scale.
Kudos to LB for having a more well-tuned sense of empathy than I, as my original reaction upon reading Duffy's comments was that he was simply a clueless, roaring asshole who could go off and eat a large bowl of dicks.
||
The NYT has an op-ed regarding unpaid internships.
||>
Is that outrageous?
It's not outrageous, no, and perhaps if done in a sufficiently institutionalized, univocal way--you're living in the Congressional Dorm, because that's what Congressfolk do, don't think about it like being someone who can't afford to have their own place--it might help them avoid taking their own living situation as saying much about the economy as a whole.
But ultimately, so long as the structure of elections, fundraising, lobbying, &c., remains the same, congresspeople are going to have a truly distorted view about what 'normal' is. Which is why what we need is ... well, you know the rest.
Which is why what we need is ... well, you know the rest.
To switch to pay-as-you-go cellular plans?
A nastier version of the mental gymnastics is: "I earn $175K/year because I work hard, and so I deserve a comfortable life. If you earn $20K/year, you must be incompetent or lazy, so you deserve what you get."
In an earlier era, he'd probably have supported eugenics.
The NYT has an op-ed regarding unpaid internships.
"The law seems murky" regarding whether receiving academic credit makes an unpaid internship kosher, says the op-ed author; to me it does not seem murky at all, given that there's a list of criteria all of which must be met if the internship is to be legal, and it is manifestly obvious that the receipt by the student of credit at his or her home institution could not possibly, by any stretch of the imagination, go even a little bit of the way toward satisfying most of them.
Not just manifest, and not just obvious; the obviousness itself is manifest.
Not sure how travel home on weekends works in practice.
They can get slizzard on the G6, if I understand popular culture correctly.
The big trend now is not to have the family move with you to DC, so, as LB said, they don't need their on apartments. Some of the Freshmen Republicans are sleeping on cots in their offices.
Living in a dormitory full of Congressional animals sounds like a hell to which I would consign only a bare majority of our elected officials.
57: Internships in things like psychology and social work are often substantive educationally and require considerable supervision. Same thing goes for divinity--though the last will be non-profit.
Sorry all. I didn't mean to write property taxes. 9-10% are their income taxes. By contrast, earned income is taxed at 5.5% in taxachusetts.
Same thing goes for divinity--though the last will be non-profit.
I'm not sure I could believe in a deity incapable of making a profit.
I believe this is the point at which I recommend Hadrian the Seventh.
A novel that proves that Mary Sues aren't all bad, incidentally.
The Bull Against the Enemy of the Anglican Race is pretty great.
"Since the three-times and four-times accursed invention of the art of printing, and its application by the turpilucricupidous (baronial or otherwise) primarily for gain of gold and secondarily for gain of power, both by means of the concupiscence of human nature ever (as Saint Paul says) avid of some novelty, it has been the custom of Our apostolic predecessors (from Alexander the Sixth, Paparch, of magnificent invincible memory) to muzzle these devils of powers by censures, maledictions, excommunications, interdicts, and all commodious anathemas, whose example We are not slow to follow; and We will make a mild beginning, while reserving far more awful fulminations for the reduction of incorrigibility."
Same thing goes for divinity--though the last will be non-profit.
I don't think I would mind going without pay for a while if the result was to become divine.
I'm surprised Corvo didn't go for "anathemata", actually.
I fear that too close a perusal of the Corvian text will be insalubrious for my writing style.
To the OP, here is a chart I made trying to show relative Congressional Salaries adjusted for CPI*. Not sure what I expected maybe less variation than I expected; they were relatively low 1920-1950s. Salary data from here. I really should have done it against median income but off to swim dinner. (Ah, here it is against minimum wage since 1947.)
I only went back to 1913 since did not find decent cost-of-living data before that. Here is the early salary data (per diems until 1855 except for 3 years); they start at $7,500 in 1913:
1789-1815 -- $6.00 per diem
1815-1817 -- $1,500 per annum
1817-1855 -- $8.00 per diem
1855-1865 -- $3,000 per annum
1865-1871 -- $5,000 per annum
1871-1873 -- $7,500 per annum
1873-1907 -- $5,000 per annum
1907-1925 -- $7,500 per annum
I assume the per diems were for days Congress was in session?
Here's a 1952 article on incomes pre-1900 and estimation problems. The figures for current per-capita national income in
the book it cites (better than nothing) are:
1799: 131 1809: 130 1819: 93 1829: 78 1839: 98 1849: 107 1859: 140 1869: 180 1879: 147 1889: 173 1900: 205 1909: 292
Let's try that again.
1799: 131
1809: 130
1819: 93
1829: 78
1839: 98
1849: 107
1859: 140
1869: 180
1879: 147
1889: 173
1900: 205
1909: 292
76 gets it right. Or, The sentiment expressed in 76 merits sober consideration.
a clueless, roaring asshole who could go off and eat a large bowl of dicks
At $175,000/year with six kids and an out-of-town job, big bowls of dicks actually are exactly the sort of luxury item that gets cut out of the budget first.
The Polish 'deputies' house' (Dom Poselski), also known as the Parliamentary Hotel (Hotel Sejmowy) is made up of studios and one bedrooms. This is the Polish Sejm speaker's bedroom. Note the special monogrammed blanket. The very lap of luxury, no?
68: Same thing goes for divinity--though the last will be non-profit.
Can omnipotent really be non-profit?
82: That's why the poor have so much trouble building a safety net. A cup has less than half as many, but only cost 25% less.
83: It's a fascinating exercise to consider what would happen with or to US Representatives and Senators if they were to be provided with single-room hotel-like accommodations like that.
A number would presumably not use them, but would instead, out of their personal funds, take a separate abode in D.C.
Even if we upgrade the hotel- or dorm-like residences to suite level (including a separate living room and kitchen), a number would likely decline. They might then be derided and face questions about their personal incomes and work ethics; hard to say.
Overall, I'm for it.
85: And when you work it out in costs of netting per square foot... well.
83: That's a really nice bathtub, though.
That's why the poor have so much trouble building a safety net.
Also, they are poor. Don't have two pennies to rub together. Nets cost money, you know. Plus labor. Let me tell you, if you hire two net guys in the same zip code, the union makes you hire a supervisor. It gets expensive.
MPs in the Scottish Parliament get funky offices like these:
http://www.edinburgharchitecture.co.uk/images/jpgs/scotparl_msp_office_kh_rmjm.jpg
There's something Bond-villian like about those window seats:
http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/nmCentre/images/latest/Images/3E5V8603.JPG
No dormitories, though, as far as I know.
The union makes you give workers protective cups. No one gets a bowl of dicks.
90.2: That looks like a stylish version of the little carrels/cubbies in which Carthusian monks study. I like it.
(Is there a joke about the Scots character to be made, given those images? I don't want to feel like I'm missing something.)
90: Wow! I'd turn the desk at a bit of an angle more toward the window -- that's a hard space to work with if you want to make it friendly to visitors and conversation -- but wow!
I have a feeling that American offices feel the need to be much more portentous. We're taken with the gravity of our own situations. And yet ....
If being portentous can keep me away from things like that window seat, I'm going to get tarot cards and some sheep bones.
OT: This April 1 episode of a podcast that I like to listen to at the gym is very funny.
Window seats in the shape of Texas! Whoda thunk.
My parents have a window seat in the shape of Colorado.
Holy shit. I want to be an MP in the Scottish Parliament.
"15: Personality, subjectivity, feuds, grudges, new norms that "everyone knows," something that Umberto Eco said about populism obviating the legislative and judicial functions."
I'd like to know what eco actually said, does someone know?
True, the window seat looks incredibly uncomfortable. I couldn't make out whether the table thing was movable or removable, and I'd probably attempt to make it so if it were my office. That task accomplished, you could throw a cushion or two on there and put a table in front of the configuration, in the room itself. Don't be so stodgy, Moby.
100: Unless there is some reason for that window seat to be that shape, and I can't figure out what that reason would be, I'm opposed. I looks like somebody put in a dozen extra surfaces per office for no point except to say, "look at this shit." And if that is really projecting out like that, it will be a headache to maintain. That 'V' is going to leak.
You're talking about the window itself. Not the seat. Except, I guess, that the projecting-out of the window's frame is part of the seatness of the window seat.
I see.
I like clean, modern lines or full-on Victorian wood carving frippery. Anything in the middle annoys me. And I am stodgy about buildings because I've spent too much time in crappy ones.
Sorry about the stodgy remark.
I take your point. That space itself is unremarkable, in fact hard to make pleasant and aesthetically interesting: it's long and fairly narrow. So I understand the impulse to do something with the window space. I hope you don't object to the ceiling and wall!
But yeah, you could just put a flat, large arched paned window in place of the projecting-out window seat doohickey, and have a small table and chairs in front of that. It wouldn't be a window seat then, of course, but rather a seat in front of a window. But there might be more natural light.
One wonders what the building looks like from the outside.
Any interlocutor at that window seat would either have to perch on those risers or snuggle in next to the MP.
Here's an exterior view of these offices.
105.1. No offense taken.
107: Uggh.
Grotesque, and indicative of muddy thinking.
The stair steps across from the seat are pretty annoying to look at. I think it would draw my eye over to that crease where it meets the slatted part constantly.
Steps that lead up to a dead end are like an eyeball with a smooth piece of skin over it.
Also, recommendations for a book for a 4-5 year old?
113: Magic Tree House series has been a big hit for us. Also, Scooby-Doo novelizations. And I was I was joking about the last one.
"And I was I was joking..." s/b "And I wish I was joking..."
113: The Ex-Girlfriend and I gave multiple copies of this book as gifts, and it seemed to go over pretty well. Also.
107: Oh. That is ... surprising. I'm not clear on why there seem to be security bars (?) on some windows but not others.* I may have to switch over to team Moby on this.
* Do people sometimes throw rocks at the windows?
112: Today I saw a guy where the iris and pupil were invisible beneath what I looked like a cataract. I can't figure why they can't remove it, so maybe it was something else.
security bars
I figured those were to break up the sunlight, available upon request.
119: They were supposed to be vertical blinds, but they decided to save money.
Here is a link to a gallery on the site that ttaM linked. This aerial shot is cool. I think the offices are cramped (and a maintenance nightmare), but overall I like the project.
120. So they went from Venetian blinds to Scottish blinds?
119: We may need ttaM to explain it.
I figure, if you're given a totally square, flat-faced building with a bunch of long skinny rooms that you have to make into offices that people won't go completely bananas in, what are you going to do? Change the frontis. Somehow.
I assume everyone here knows how to make a Venetian blind.
119: I think they no better than to expect sunlight in Scotland. What do you take them for, a bunch of cunts?
124: Glaucoma and an HMO that isn't meeting 3rd quarter projections?
From the link in 121 this view of that building doesn't look so awful; you can see what the architects are after. It's clear that the bars are sunlight filters, and their pattern is duplicated on the side of the building itself.
Actually, I'm not certain that's the same building.
I like those window seats. I think it would be pleasant to sit in one.
Is it just me, or has the mouseover text changed?
There is alt text--really there is. But it is secret. (No, it is not just you.) I figure neb will fix it later.
Masturbate to the lion of Saint Mark?
111: You could put some nice potted plants on the stair-steps, and they would get decent light from the windows. Not so bad to look at.
True. I suppose you'd have to. But it's not a stepped window sill; they're the full fledged width of a flight of stairs. You'd probably be best off with a row of plants on each stair. Perhaps an herbal garden.
If I ever make $175,000 a year, I'm going to have a house with an attached greenhouse/solarium thing.
138: With a big enough grow operation, you could clear $175K in no time.
i'd have a planetarium. and no garden, since i oculd finally afford fresh produce.
is 'scottish blinds' a term for prison bars? it doesn't exist on urban dictionary.
i don't like the hyperasymetrical thing, but otherwise those are nice buildings.
140: How about an observatory? Probably cheaper, but real.
I'd be tempted to put some mock-ups of the marching dudes from Escher's endless stairs picture.
Shhh? I guess I don't know how to spell that.
Anyone, like Congressman Duffy, who's feeling poor at $175K per year, and doesn't get from there to a belief that government is desperately necessary to provide help and security for people who are genuinely poor and lower-income, has a completely broken sense of empathy.
This is silly, empathy for the poor is not logically equivalent to support for big government.
140: How about an observatory? Probably cheaper, but real.
a. have to live out in the mountains of utah to see anything
b. not enough supernovae
149.b: With enough booze and an Oasis song playing on repeat, you can experience a champagne supernova in the sky every night of the week.
has anyone had these toasted seaweed snackes? the y are fucking delicious!
i just ate the whole box. i with strader joes was open right now and i was nondrunk enough to drive there so i could buy more.
also that thing about fred astaire backwareds came from a GOP speachwriter. nuckes on our heades all.
Does the American Speaker have to reside in the Capitol?
i'll take it by your email you are nonironic
speaker=douchebag no.374
(The Speakers of the lower houses of Westminster Parliaments have to reside in the Parliamentary precinct, by tradition and in order to exert their control over the area.)
I wanted to respond to 148, but upon re-reading, I think that it is pretty much perfect just the way it is.
hsiit. i really wish someone would help me embiggen government.
159
Anyone who has ever felt unsafe in the United States and doesn't get from there to a belief that government intervention in Libya is desperately necessary to provide help and security for people who are genuinely at risk, has a completely broken sense of empathy.
160: yoyo, all of your drunk-typing is perfectly cromulent, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
138: I have a longstanding fantasy of building a greenhouse as an addition over my garage. (It would ajoin the master bedroom.)
for christ's sake, james, you can do better than that.
Anyone who has ever been raped and doesn't get from there to a belief that affirmative action is just another form of odious discrimination has a completely broken sense of empathy logical equivalence something.
154: nuckes=nookies? naches?
Sometimes I get the feeling that James is here to either fight or chew gum, and he's all out of gum.
170: Was this comment so stupid it killed the blog?
I'm sorry.
I really miss that show Darkwing Duck. It was THE BEST.
I'm a cowboy! Just like Kid Rock! He's my favorite singer.
I've been thinking about this and I've come to the conclusion that feeling sympathy for this Congressman because each of his family has to get by on $22k less taxes is misguided. He's a whining toerag and there's an end on it. British MPs earn about half of his salary and as far as I can see they have comparable allowances and certainly have less freedom to earn on the side. British MPs don't cry poverty because they know people would throw eggs at them if they did (hint). But that's the minor point.
Americans don't generally starve to death if they're not homeless, and this guy isn't - he has plural homes. Presumably most Americans with 6 kids earn well less than £175k, but they manage. Maybe they get food stamps. Even the upper middle class (by training) ones. Maybe Rep. Duffy is eligible for food stamps, but I bet he hasn't checked. This isn't about, "Even the upper middle class can struggle to get by", this is about, "I'm a member of an elite, I should not be troubled with these awkward matters." It's about the disconnect between the electorate and the elected, and the fact that they no longer feel like public servants, but like a temporary aristocracy. Time they were reminded.
174: I've always wanted to know: What is a toerag? Is there an etymology, folk or not? Is it rhyming slang that I'm just missing? Is the referent some pre-Victorian foot-washing-in-lieu-of-proper-bathing practice?
OT: Speaking of British things, I really miss the blonde who used to be on the Orbit chewing gum commercials. The new spokesblonde is very comely, but the previous one had a certain qui vive way of wearing a '60s-inspired minidress.
I've probably said too much.
174: Your empathy is broken! Just because billions of other people have it much much worse doesn't mean we can't feel sympathy for this guy. Think of his pain when he realizes that he will have to continue to drive his 1-year old car for another year! When he has to tell his child that Sana Claus won't be bringing him an X-box, and that she'll have continue to share one with her older brother!
176: Not to mention having to sell the "t" in Santa Claus to make ends meet!
177: Now I believe this country is broken. Our consonants make us who we are!
Actually, I think our bowels are more central to who we are.
174: because each of his family has to get by on $22k less taxes
He probably doesn't even pay that much in taxes, if he's deducting all that mortgage interest, and has the deductions for 6 kids as well. Plus he's probably got some other scams going. And he's a lawyer who's been in Congress. Even if he got booted in 2012, he's gonna be able to bill huge amounts for the rest of his life. Still not finding any empathy.
Another thing: I haven't seen this mentioned in any of the coverage, but Ashland, where he lives, has been economically depressed for like a quarter century now. There are a LOT of people in Ashland and surrounding towns who barely eke out a poverty-level existence from their Wal-Mart wages. Average incomes in his district are probably significantly skewed by all the retirees with good union pensions who bought houses up there when it was even cheaper than it is now.
174: this is about, "I'm a member of an elite, I should not be troubled with these awkward matters." It's about the disconnect between the electorate and the elected, and the fact that they no longer feel like public servants, but like a temporary aristocracy.
I'm inclined to agree; it's one reason I'm interested in how the idea of Congressional dorms would be received. (a) Dorms or hotel-like suites scream "temporary", which might be a suitable reminder to elected officials that their having achieved electoral office is not an automatic ticket to a new and everlasting life (cf. the 'revolving door' between former office holders and lobbyist gigs). (b) Dorms further suggest modesty, working against the aristocratic mindset.
One suspects that Congressional dorms/suites would be fought tooth and nail, as beneath the dignity of our elected officials. Yet it's an interesting exercise (to me) to consider how such a thing might could fundamentally change the attitude of office holders to their jobs.
183: Is the idea that members of congress would be required to be live in the dorms like some colleges require freshmen to live in dorms? I'm feeling a reality-TV hit!
I'm feeling a reality-TV hit!
"Potomac Shore"? No, wait: "Big Brother"?
"A rag wrapped round the foot and worn inside a shoe, in place of a sock." - OED
One suspects that Congressional dorms/suites would be fought tooth and nail, as beneath the dignity of our elected officials socialist public housing.
FTFY.
186: That sounds unsanitary , like so many things about Knifecrime Island (steak and kidney pie, Posh Spice, Manchester, etc.).
184: I'm iffy on that. Requiring it seems a bit much. What's the arrangement in Poland: is residence in the dorms required or simply available if desired or needed?
187: Yeah, I know. I just like the idea of taking the whole "Congressman X is sleeping on a cot in his office, and Congresspeople Y, Z and A are sharing a flophouse!" dynamic out of the equation. There are already too many incentives for our range of elected representatives to come from the monied classes, and celebrating as extraordinarily humble and hard-working those who appear to be pinching pennies just reinforces the submerged narrative that the normal, default representative is deserving of his/her position, which deserving status is naturally accompanied by money, so those who evince penny-pinching are especially cute, aren't they? Working so hard, bootstrapping themselves like that!
So equalize our Representatives, at least while in D.C., by providing them with routine housing arrangements.
which might be a suitable reminder to elected officials that their having achieved electoral office is not an automatic ticket to a new and everlasting life (cf. the 'revolving door' between former office holders and lobbyist gigs)
But having achieved electoral office is such a ticket, more or less; certainly within a few terms of office. I think the dorm idea is neat, and might have some slight effects at the margin, but we shouldn't let it distract us from the necessity of doing away with the electoral paradigm altogether.
but we shouldn't let it distract us from the necessity of doing away with the electoral paradigmruling class altogether.
190: It's a 2-part plan. First the dorms make being a congressperson completely undesirable, so nobody wants to run. This forces us to switch to a lottery system in which citizens are chosen randomly and then required to serve.
154 is incorrect. The line came from a Frank and Ernest comic strip by Bob Thaves but was popularized by Reagan speechwriter Faith Whittlesey.
190: Ha. You're cute, but I think the dorm idea is more than neat, and might have farther-reaching effects than you imagine. So there. Distraction, hmph.
Okay, I endorse 192.
Actually, I say we start with California.
I can like the wierd duck-wing duck-blind pointy-window offices because I would put books on the staircase, with plants near the windows. Pleasant enough.
This facade disturbs me, though; why pistols?
Okay, I won't carry on about this much longer, but I honestly wish that the collective wisdom of the Mineshaft might contribute to thinking about the dorm idea.
First pass objections: there are elder statesmen, so to speak, who will simply find a dorm suite arrangement unsuitable. There are those with families, which families might like to visit mom or dad in D.C., which would be unworkable in a dorm suite setting. So. Perhaps provide upgraded suites to those with seniority; and provide the possibility of upgrades to those who wish to pay additionally (on top of some base allowance/lodging) for those with families.
To the question whether dorm suites would make the job unbearably undesirable: Well, true. A person likes to be able to express his or her individuality. But one is able to do that in an apartment anyway, so I'm not seeing the problem, really. We can provide these people with apartments, basically.
This isn't going to work at all, is it? You guys suck.
198: The real problem is that as if you have envisioned it this would be an additional expense to the federal government. But I have a way we could finance this without any government expenditure -- the government sells the rights to the reality-TV show to a network that takes on the cost of building and running the dormitory.
The problem is that this ruins the plan in 192. No matter how awful the dorm is, lots of people will be eager to run for Congress, so they can be on TV.
The dorm building could have guest suites for visitors -- not everyone's family would be in town the same weekend.
It's not a bad idea, but I don't see it having much of an effect.
Does the VP get to be the RA?
That would help keep him busy!
198: I think it's a great idea. College-type dorms are the next best thing to prison.
202:FDL displays the blogosphere conventional wisdom, that Republicans are committing political suicide. Just as they did with the tax cuts, right.
a) Rethugs know how to negotiate. Ask for the impossible.
or
b) Tag Team politics. Obama now makes a counter-offer at 80% of what we have now. Obama may even get to veto something, but the final policy will be 50% of what we have now and we will be expected to cheer.
From a FDL commenter:"Privatizing Medicare is the inevitable follow-up to Obama's failure to get genuine HCR"
It wasn't a fucking failure.
I have been expecting Obama to move Medicare and Medicaid into his "wunnerful wunnerful" HCR system all along. Costs must be controlled, but profits protected which will mean lots of people unnecessarily dead.
Yglesias today
The idea here is that today's old people--a very white group that's also hostile to gay rights, and thus sort of predisposed to like conservative politicians--will also get to benefit from an extremely generous single-payer health care system. But younger people--a less white group that's friendly to gay rights and thus predisposed to skepticism about conservative politicians--will get to pay the high taxes to finance old people's generous single-payer health care system, but then we won't get to benefit from it.
See the framing from the hack? Anyone who wants to protect Medicare is a selfish racist homophobic Republican. And damn, we just can't get the tax increases, so somebody has to sacrifice. Matt has been working this for months, on orders.
That is what people didn't get about my rage at the Obama privatizing plan. It was never intended as a step toward single-payer, but always intended as a structure to give Medicare to Wellpoint.
204: bob, you are grossly misinterpreting Yglesias.
I suppose I should tell you something you don't know.
204: bob, you are grossly misinterpreting $foo
Should be a macro.
"Misinterpreting" is also wayy too generous. The disgusting ghoul is flat out saying the opposite of what Yglesias means.
old people--a very white group that's also hostile to gay rights, and thus sort of predisposed to like conservative politicians
This is not easily misinterpreted, and I am very offended.
210: Pity party for bob! Who's bringing the violins?
Putting aside bob's hurt feelings, Yglesias is arguing against those who want to keep Medicare only for today's seniors and set up a private voucher system for tomorrow's seniors.
211:Okay. So the fair solution will be, oh damn the Republicans not ever Obama's fault, a voucher system for today's seniors.
In other words, since Obamacare is so fucking wunnerful, why should "old people--a very white group that's also hostile to gay rights, and thus sort of predisposed to like conservative politicians" be treated so different from everybody else?
We won't get all the way there this term, I don't think, but Obama will make a partial compromise, and then when the 20 somethings get hit by the bill in 2014 or whenever, he will have the support to move Medicare to the exchanges. Giving it to Wellpoint.
And even if you are deluded enough after all this time to believe Obama (and Yggles and Klein) really in his true heart of hearts dreams of single-payer, Medicare for all, the HCR he enacted pretty much makes it forever impossible. Once Obamacare kicks in, the health insurance companies will be too big and too global to fail or nationalize. They won't keep those premiums in a piggy bank, they will be the glue that hold the world financial system and economy together.
Once everything is on the exchanges, then it is a matter of the funding of the subsidies that will be determined by Congress. Congress does not do well by Medicaid.
The idea all along has been to slash entitlements. They are just really smart about it.
I think dorms are a nice idea, but in the sense that they'd be an admirable symptom of the kind of society that creates and maintains strong, universalistic welfare states. But we're so far from that kind of society that the idea would tend to meet with flat incomprehension. I'd prefer to work on core principles as opposed to extrusions therefore.
Or do you want to tell me that somewhere in the summer of 2012, Obama will insist the House Republicans raise the FICA tax cuts and cancel all the Bush tax cuts?
The FICA tax cut is permanent.
The Bush tax cuts are permanent.
We are getting a big regressive VAT.
Social Security and Medicare are doomed.
Obama is the first evil President (Bush II was just dumb)
Bob McManus: Objectively soft on Buchanan.
216:Buchanan was trying to prevent a terrible war
217:There is an important difference between people, however deluded or foolish or stupid, who are trying to do the right thing and the self-consciously corrupt, the turpilucricupidous.
Digby on our "Marching Orders" comments are good
"I can't wait to see my local banker knocking on my door asking for my vote for Obama."
Well, small local bankers got screwed, but in principle, me too.
210: This is not easily misinterpreted, I am very offended.
Quit dishonoring our generation you big fucking pussy.
219:Sexist fucking pig.
212,213, and 215 are fucking predictions. Leave them in comments, along with my 2008 prediction that the Bush tax cuts are here to stay.
220:And I got nothing, absolutely nothing but total universal contempt for that 2008 prediction. Everyone disagreed and thought the tax cuts would expire.
You think your tribal bullshit bothers me now?
I've long been a defender of the special flavor of crazy spice that Bob brings to discussions, but Jesus Christ is this boring.
Christ is this boring
It alternates between disgusting, boring, appalling, and interesting. Like a Magic 8-ball of the damned.
223: I'm kind of enjoying the pleasant banalities.
Further to 77, I found some average income* (excluding capital gains) data back to 1913 and made a plot with congressional salary and average income in 2011 dollars from 1913-2011. The current ratio of about 3.5:1 equals the low during that time; as high as 12:1 between wars.
*Data from here. Includes a lot of caveats.
The dorm building could have guest suites for visitors
Strip searches for contraband would, of course, be required after conjugal visits.
227: No condoms allowed in the Republican Wing.
228: no minors allowed in the Republican Wing. Nor wetsuits.
*Wide* stalls in the Republican Wing.
214: Thanks, Minivet. I continue to think that the shift in attitude that would come with the dorm arrangement would stand a decent chance of affecting core principles -- that's the point -- but it's a nonstarter, I realize that.
Personally I think dorms are a bad idea, in that workers should have the right to live as they choose, and not as enforced by their employer.
In Poland nobody has to live in the dorms if they don't want to, the government is simply recognizing that this set of employees, mostly from outside the capital, needs to be in Warsaw on a regular basis, and that costs money. I see it as the equivalent of having a bunch of corporate apartments around for employees.
I've remained uncertain whether these dorms should be mandatory -- I tend to think not. Rather, an option provided with the office, which could be declined. The question then would be how many representatives would decline and take separate housing (on their own dime). Dunno.
It could go either of two ways: either taking the dorm housing provided would be considered utterly tacky and pathetic, and nobody with any self-respect does it; or (eventually?) not taking the housing would brand you as entitled.
Eh. It was a thought experiment.
234 crossed with 233, which describes a sensible arrangement!
In Poland nobody has to live in the dorms if they don't want to, the government is simply recognizing that this set of employees, mostly from outside the capital, needs to be in Warsaw on a regular basis, and that costs money. I see it as the equivalent of having a bunch of corporate apartments around for employees.
But why not just give the representatives a housing allowance, and let them find their own housing? (Here I am a free marketer.)
That is a possibility, though god knows how you'd come up with the amount for the housing allowance. D.C. is very expensive housing-wise; the hypothetical dorms/apartments/suites would be furnished, which most rental housing is not. I can easily imagine that with a housing allowance, some lodging establishments very much like the proposed dorm suites would crop up in no time.
You'd have people (representatives) sorting themselves by inclination and class.
Sigh. This defeats the purpose of my proposal, but I can't deny that this is how people roll.
I thought UK MPs got an unlimited housing (etc) allowance against which to bill their satelite sports channel and moat redecoration.
