On May 19th, Vice President Joe Biden spoke at the National Urban League Legislative Policy Conference in Washington, District of Corruption. In his speech he mentioned that he “had never been gainfully employed in his life.” He added, “I’ve never cashed a paycheck.” These remarks were said in the context of fear of retirement.
This man, a professional politician and government hack, has been a senator since 1973 and Vice President since 2009. Like his boss the President, they are professional politicians; they are schemers who have no real world business experience but spend their time getting elected. Once elected and re-elected, their time is spent trying to figure out how to squeeze more tax revenue from the people that elected them.
Vice President Joe Biden is just the tip of the iceberg. West Virginia’s Robert C. Byrd was a representative from West Virginia from 1953 to 1959 and a senator from 1959 to 2010, a total of 57 years. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina was born in 1902 and was a highly decorated U.S. Army officer during WWII. Senator Thurmond died in 20013 after senate employment since 1954.
Chuck Schumer, Senator from New York has a resume that includes no private employment like Joe Biden. (To his credit, Biden did practice law prior to government service.) Schumer received his Law degree from Harvard in 1974 and became a state assemblyman from 1975 to 1980. In 1980 he began his tenure as congressman and won a senate seat in 1998. He has been in the U.S. Congress for 36 years.
The most outrageous case of congressional family planning comes from the great state of Michigan where John Dingell, Sr. was congressman from 1933 to 1955. His son, John Dingell, was a congressman from 1955 to 2015 and upon retirement, Debbie Dingell, John’s wife, became the family guardian of a congressional seat in 2015. A congressional seat has been in the Dingell family for 83 years.
Here’s the problem: Robert Byrd of West Virginia was 92 and still in office at the time of his death. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina remained in office at age 100. What ‘service’ were these men providing for voters and citizens at the time of their demise?
It’s time that we took self-management from congress and placed it in the hands of those who elected them. Consider that corporations have boards of experienced men and women who exercise oversight of operations and financial affairs. Do we realize that members of congress give themselves salary increases and determine that they are privileged and thus have special low-cost healthcare for themselves and their staffs?
Our President seems to be preoccupied with issues of inequality of income. This relates to gender, race, age and other features that are developed or innate. Here are some issues of real inequality: there are congressmen and women who frequently absent and participate mildly in the perpetual debates in the House and Senate.
Should low performing Congressmen and women receive the same compensation as high performing peers? Why should federal employees on the ‘GS’ scale receive the same compensation and the same ‘step’ increases each year? It’s an incontrovertible fact that no two workers are exactly equal in performance.
Are the salaries of City Council members and County Commissioners established on the basis of contributions to valued service or are compensation plans determined by compensation of other or nearby officials with similar titles?
When you consider the answers to the questions above, you should realize that government is a willing advocate of inequality. And you and I pay through the nose when considering the inequality of government employment.
Over the past 240 years, our bureaucracy has become the domain of lobbyists, pressure groups and political hacks. Our laws regarding schools, immigration, firearms, voting, regulation and commerce keep changing without reference to results and consequences. This is the overwhelming reason why more power and authority should be relinquished to the states.
Dr. Laurence J. Peter (9/16/1919-1/12/1990), a college professor in California, developed the ‘Peter Principle’ that states, “In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his/her level of incompetence.”
Many of our government leaders have met all the conditions of the Peter Principle.
Dick Baynton
