Most of us agree that when it comes to “groups whose members we collectively trust to make decisions with wide-ranging consequences,” Congress ranks somewhere between “trial lawyers who advertise on park benches” and “mayors of Washington, D.C.” With Congress sporting a shiny 20 percent approval rating, I’m comfortable making the statement that just shy of $200,000 per year is one hell of a paycheck — especially since only one-fifth of Americans think they’re worth it.
With the exception of being a Kardashian or Michael Moore’s personal trainer, there isn’t another profession on Earth that pays more in return for less than being a member of Congress. Not only do our esteemed representatives knock down $174,000 annually, their perks are better than the annual salaries of the people they routinely fail to represent. And unless they’re colossally corrupt or colossally stupid, they’re pretty much guaranteed permanent employment if they should ever lose their grip on the federal brass ring. Being a member of Congress is a sweet gig. You’d think that people of such low character and high maintenance would at least be grateful, if not gracious.
Silly taxpayer, you’d be wrong. Last week, Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-Fla.) decided he wasn’t going to bear such Spartan privations for another moment. Hastings, who began his congressional tenure in 1993 after sitting on the federal bench from 1979 to 1989, said: “We aren’t being paid properly.” I would be remiss were I to omit that the gap between the end of his judgeship and beginning of his congressional service was due to the fact that Hastings has complained about the size of his paycheck before. Back in 1988, Hastings, having been caught taking bribes, was impeached and dismissed from the bench in disgrace. Fortunately, his constituents are the sort of people who elect cretins like Alcee Hastings; and Hastings turned that impeachment frown upside down just a couple of years later.
At some level, one almost has to admire the pure chutzpah of a guy like Hastings. He hasn’t earned a legitimate paycheck outside the public sector since Obama was blazing up with the “Choom Gang,” and he’s just not being properly compensated for his time. Granted, Hastings is one of Congress’s least financially stable members, but that’s a consequence of his own personal failings. It’s hard to justify billing his shame to our credit card. But Hastings wants to get paid, and he wants us to know it. “Members deserve to be paid, staff deserves to be paid and the cost of living here is causing serious problems for people who are not wealthy to serve in this institution.”
Hastings is certainly not alone. Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), who as House minority whip is the second-highest-ranking Democrat in the House, said: “I agree with Mr. Hastings.” Michelle Obama, who has won precisely zero elections, has made no secret of her belief that she ought to be pulling down her own ducats. Between toting four dozen or so of her BFFs on five-star spa getaways and sucking the flavor out of a generation of school lunches, she is stretched to the breaking point. Aspen or Vail? Nantucket or Hawaii? I’m humbled by her strength.
Of course, Hastings, Hoyer and Obama are hardly breaking new ground. And there is neither a partisan nor racial monopoly on being unworthy of our trust. Ask Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) about Charles Keating or former Rep. Michael Grimm (R-N.Y.) about — oops; too late. And since we keep electing these wire-pullers, we get, as Joseph de Maistre put it, “the government we deserve.”
But it’s worth noting that yesterday was Memorial Day. Of course, we’ve done to Memorial Day what we’ve do to almost every holiday: turned it into an opportunity to hold an inventory blowout at rock-bottom prices! It might be part of our uniquely American charm that we can mark the most magnificent sacrifices in our nation’s history by taking advantage of incredible financing, but I’d like to think we can do slightly better on behalf of that “last full measure of devotion” than a self-disgraced political remora whining about how rough life can be when you’re pulling down only 174 large, plus expenses. (Hastings also takes full advantage of the $24,000 congressional car allowance, and he is consistently ranked at the top of Congress’s nepotism standings).
When American kids, generations hence, watch virtual reality holo-simulations of our chapter of the national tale, I’d like to think that they would learn we were the ones who brought an end to the cronyism and corruption that infects the political profession like a stubborn fungus. I’d like to think that those kids would learn how the 2010s were the last decade in which the people did the bidding of the politicians, and not the other way around. I’d like to think that they’ll learn how this era of Americans finally swept Washington clean of kleptocrats like Hastings. If we don’t owe it to the people in whose magnificent honor Memorial Day was created, then we owe it to the Americans of the future. And if that doesn’t convince you of the need to do better than guys like Alcee Hastings, then ask yourself this question: If we don’t owe it to those who’ve gone before nor to those to come after, don’t we at least owe it to ourselves?
–Ben Crystal
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