Congress and its $550 million jets

So Congress plans to spend $550 million to buy eight jets and upgrade their private jet fleet. And they’re doing this, while  criticizing corporate America for having private jets and being out of touch with the public. You just can’t make this stuff up. And then they sit like starry-eyed deer in headlights when they are lambasted in town hall meetings.

What I find imminently entertaining is the explanation from Ellis Brachman, a spokesman for the House Appropriations Committee, said the changes were part of “Congress’s normal oversight responsibility” to make sure “the troops have everything they need.”

Sometimes you have to scratch your head and just wonder: “Do they get it?” “What island are they living on?” How could they possibly have exhausted so much vitriol at the American car manufacturers and corporate America’s use of corporate jets and then go turn around and upgrade their own fleet? Are they even listening to themselves.

Sadly, though, I was thinking the other day, if there’s any single profession that I would never entrust my budget to it would be lawyers. Think about it: if there is a profession that knows how to spend other peoples money, it is lawyers. Yeah, sure, investment bankers spend your money but you’re giving it to them with the faint hope of getting more back then you gave them. Lawyers, on the other hand, just plain old spend. I was sued several years ago and the lawsuit was thrown out for a number of reasons. I had a great lawyer and he was relatively inexpensive. I had New York lawyers blanch at what this mid-westerner lawyer charged me. They all told me that if this had been in New York, I would have been charged ten times the amount. And that would have been considered cheap.

And here’s the part I didn’t mention to these New York lawyers: the law firm charged me $2000 for making copies. So think about this:

first, a New York lawyer would have charged me 10-20 times what a mid western lawyer charged me. Where’s the value add? Regrettably, there is none, you’re just pissing away good money (though you do get to have conferences in fancy mahogany board rooms).

second, even though I like this lawyer a lot and he did me a great service by getting the suit justifiably thrown out, he spent $2000 on copies. $2000 on copies, that’s a lot of paper.

(Ok, big leap now … ) So why do we keep electing lawyers to Congress? They’re only interested in spending money. Money for constituents, money for themselves, money for reelection.

Don’t have enough to make ends meet? Raise taxes.

Feeling a little guilty about raising taxes? Create new fees and/or raise the current fees.

Fees already overweight? Print money!

I mentioned this before and I will harp on this. I think politicians should be issued licenses. When and if they don’t something really stupid, they lose their license and they have to leave this little exclusive club we call Congress.

This would mean you lose your license for getting drunk and driving off the road with a hooker in the car (you can keep the hooker); you would lose your license for creating laws that caused meltdowns. The Savings and Loan crisis of the late 1980’s and early 1990’s was a result of bad legislation. The current economic meltdown is a result of a lot of things but it started with Congress loosening the laws surrounding mortgages (among the many other bad moves they made).

Once we see that there exist direct correlations between laws enacted and unintended (but all too foreseeable) consequences, those folks that enacted the laws must be removed from office. And I might add, even those who might have voted against it will not necessarily come out unscathed, especially if they voted against the laws for all the wrong reasons.

I may be starting to sound a little Orwellian, so I’ll end it here.