Louisiana Voice

It has brought to my attention by an attentive reader that:

• Republicans have the majority in both houses of Congress and the presidency so they are responsible for the shut down and not resolving it
• Congress is NOT shut down; their lights never went out
• Republicans are refusing to fix the problem they created, but they are still taking their paychecks
• Speaker Johnson’s job as the leader of the House Republicans is to operate the United States Government
  • The problem is not what is in the Continuing Resolution (CR), but that Republicans have removed the funding for health care from the budget and the CR
  • He knew they would not get the required 60 votes in the Senate
  • By passing the “clean CR”, he has not “done his job”, because the government is still shut down
• Congress is not shut down like the rest of the government, the lights are on in Congress
  • The only way to get government back open is to negotiate with the Democrats
  • Saying that they can’t negotiate until the government “lights are back on” is a lie
  • The Republicans are refusing to do their jobs, negotiate a settlement, even though they are being paid 

Having made these points, I decided to dive a bit further and reveal the following:

Essential federal employees like air traffic controllers, are being required to work without pay and thousands of employees have been furloughed or fired while the Republicans and Democrats take turns pointing fingers at each other and nothing gets done. Members of the military were initially included in those who would go unpaid but Trump, under considerable pressure, illegally decreed that money earmarked for other purposes be clawed back to pay those in uniform.

The point is, while those who actually get the work done go without pay, members of Congress are exempted and will not miss a single paycheck.

Rank-and-file members of the House and Senate are paid $174,000 per year.

That means for the 17 days (and counting) of the government shutdown, Reps. Julia Letlow, Clay Higgins, Troy Carter and Cleo Fields and Sens. John N. Kennedy and Bill Cassidy have each been paid $476.71 per day, or a total of $8,104 each for not working.

Carter, at least, made the effort to pay for meals for TSA workers but was told that federal employees could not accept gratuities from elected officials. Of course, that didn’t stop Kennedy from once attempting to make a contribution to LouisianaVoice from his campaign funds – a contribution that was promptly returned by LouisianaVoice.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise is paid $195,400 per year, or $529.86 per day. For the 17 days that he has not worked, he has been paid $9,067.62.

Mike Johnson, Donald Trump’s boy puppet, serves as House Speaker and accordingly, is paid $223,500 per year, or $612.33 per day. For the 17 days that he has refused to call the House to session, he has been paid $10,409.61.

But I’ve only given you the numbers for the 17 days of the shutdown. Let’s look at the real figures:

Since July 3, the House has been in session only 20 days, meaning there are actually 86 days in which members have been idly collecting their salaries:

Higgins, Letlow, Fields and Carter: $40,936 each, or a total of $163,744;

Scalise: $45,567;

Johnson: $52,660.

That’s a total of $261,971 for all six representatives – for doing nothing.

The minimum wage is $7.25 per hour. That means a minimum wage worker who works a 40-hour week would receive $15,080 per year.

For a rank-and-file member of the House or Senate to make $15,080 for doing nothing during a government shutdown, it would take 31 days, or the equivalent of one month. It’s even shorter for Scalise (28 days, or one February) and for Johnson, only 24 days of non-working would be required for him to receive a year’s salary of a minimum-wage worker.

Taken together, our two senators and six representatives have been paid $67,028 for the 17 days the government has been shut down. That’s $67,000 for sitting on their asses while others scramble to buy food, make mortgage payments, pay car notes, keep the lights on and find a way to pay for critical prescription drugs.

Take Johnson’s 86-day salary. It would take a minimum-wage worker three-and-a-half years to earn what it has taken him less than three months of idleness to be paid.

And just why is it the House has been a hollowed-out echo chamber all this time? It’s pure politics, really. You see, there’s this thing called a discharge petition that would force a House vote on releasing the Epstein files. The petition needs only one vote to succeed but Johnson the Enabler wants so desperately to protect Pedo-POTUS, that he’ll do anything to prevent the files’ release – including keeping the House in recess because to reconvene would mean he’d be forced to swear in newly-elected Democrat Adelita Grijalva who is the vote needed to pass the petition.

What the hell do you suppose could be in those files anyway?