Reasons to give 109th Congress the golden boot

We need a new Congress — here’s why:

1. Congress set a record for the fewest number of days worked — 218 between the House and Senate combined. [Link]
2. The Senate voted down a measure that urged the administration to start a phased redeployment of U.S. forces out of Iraq by the end of 2006. [Link]
3. Congress failed to raise the minimum wage, leaving it at its lowest inflation-adjusted level since 1955. [Link]
4. Congress gave itself a two percent pay raise. [Link]
5. There were 15,832 earmarks totaling $71 billion in 2006. (In 1994, there were 4,155 earmarks totaling $29 billion.) [Link]
6. Congress turned the tragic Terri Schiavo affair into a national spectacle because, according to one memo, it was “a great political issue” that got “the pro-life base…excited.” [Link]
7. The chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works thinks global warming is the “greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.” [Link]
8. The House leadership held open a vote for 50 minutes to twist arms and pass a bill that helped line the pockets of energy company executives. [Link]
9. Congress fired the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, the lone effective federal watchdog for Iraq spending, effective Oct. 1, 2007. [Link]
10. The Chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee thinks the Internet is “a series of tubes.” [Link]

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/11/06/109-congress/