The other day I decided to take a look at the two candidates' voting records and I was surprised to find that they frequently don't show up to vote when congress has a decision to make. In the current congress McCain has been absent around 60% of the time and Obama has been absent about 50% of the time. I really can't understand how this is tolerated. How many people can not show up to work over half the time they are supposed to and keep their job? These two politicians were chosen by the people of their states to represent them in decisions made by the government. If they don't show up to vote then those people are not getting fair representation. I decided to see if this was common so I looked up my two congresswomen from California, Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein who have been absent 5.6% and 2.7% or the time respectively. When I've mentioned this to some of my friends I've been told that they've been out campaigning so that is why they have missed votes. I don't think that is justification. That is basically saying that if a career opportunity comes up they can neglect their current job in order to pursue it. The big question here would be, do they still get paid for being a congressman while they are campaigning? And if they lose the election do they simply return to finish their term as congressman? Either way I am surprised candidates never get called to account for this, I think it can be a testiment to their work ethic and a certain degree of not realizing or valuing the significance of their job in our goverment.
On a somewhat similar note, I am tired of feeling like when I go to vote I have to pick the lesser of two poor options. Maybe one of these days the two party system will start to break down and we can get some outsiders in to bring a different vibe and a different experience base into our countries leadership. I would be very quick to vote for some big business leaders to change things up a bit (i.e Jack Welch, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett).
How do you feel about politicians not doing their jobs? Any ideas on a better way to find candidates?
1 hour ago
3 comments:
You have a good point. I don't know when it became okay for a senator not to show up, just took as as that is the way it was. On a slight side note, I would be interested to see the voting record before campaigning began. I'll look it up and let you know. Did you see that the annual salary was over $165,000. Is that a little or a lot these days? It's a lot more than I make! Did you know that there are only 16 women serving currently on the U.S. Senate, and 6 minority representatives?
Yeah, I'm sure they had a better record before the campaigning started, it is just amazing to me that it doesn't seem to matter.
The pay is probably a decrease for most congress people since a lot of them come from the legal field I have a feeling they are used to getting paid more. But if they can just not show up whenever they want then their pay should be more like $30,000. The number of women is a little surprising, but I have a feeling that there are a lot of states that don't have that large of a minority population so that might play a factor in that.
I believe the statement "of the people, by the people and for the people" that was used to describe the kind of government we wanted is no longer a value to our representatives. It seems our representatives do not care about people. They are selfish, greedy, into power and do not act with our best interests in mind.
I think they should be allowed so many days to not show up and after this they should be fined for every miss and after a certain number of misses they should be fired. I also think they should be required to visit and hold town hall type meetings in every community they represent.
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