Everyone’s favorite government employees who hates other government employees Pt. 7: The US Congress. Own The Complete Set (buy them, sell them, collect them)

Last month I covered a series of newly elected republican governors in a series called government employees who hate other government employees. I was sincere in saying I needed to find a seventh dwarf to complete the set. The seventh dwarf has been found and it seems to reside in Washington D.C.. It is the United States congress.

According to the New York Times (8/5/11) a record 82% now disapproves of the way congress does it’s job the highest number since the question was first asked in 1977. About half of congress seem to want to conduct business as usual shuffling money to their big money contributors while the other half, draw government checks, while seeming to want to destroy the very government they work for. A meager handful actually seem to know something and have new ideas.

Despite this you have speaker John Boehner crowing about getting 98% of what he wanted, minority leader Mitch McConnell promising more hostage taking in future to slow up the president‘s agenda, the stock market dropping by 500 points and more jobs being lost as the Republicans seem to hope the presidency will fall into their hands if they can just inflict more misery on the Americans. By two to one (Ibid) Americans wanted congress to commit themselves to trying to create jobs before it did anything else, instead what they got was the debt ceiling farce and job crisis being treated as an afterthought if you don’t buy into the euphemisms of not raising taxes on very rich or the job creators (who didn’t create jobs before the debt ceiling fight and haven’t created them since it either.)

ABC (Disney) News reported (3/31/11) that a number of the tea party congressmen and woman were themselves taking large federal subsidies. They wrote, “While the majority of American farmers receive no government money at all, at least 23 current members of congress or their families have received government money for their farms -- combining for more than $12 million since 1995 according to a new report from the

The biggest recipient was Rep. Stephen Fincher, a Republican from Frog Jump, Tenn.
While the self-described Tea Party patriot lists his occupation as "farmer" and "gospel singer" in the Congressional Directory, he doesn't mention that his family has received more than $3 million in farm subsidies from 1995 to 2009, according to the Environmental Working Group.

According to Salon 3/31/11, “Shocker: Anti-government activists are all welfare queens! But they accept the "wealthy white person" version of welfare, which is "farm subsidies." (The "wealthy white person" version of welfare is also lots of other subsidies and tax credits and government spending.)

Salon added (Ibid), “Rep. Vicky Hartzler just said ‘everything should be on the table’ and she was open to ‘starting the discussion,’ which is just how lawmakers talk when they refuse to admit that they won't vote for something they should vote for.

‘Anti-government Republicans take lots of free government money’ is basically an evergreen story. Chuck Grassley, Sam Brownback, and Michele Bachmann , even though they all hate the socialism so much (Ibid)Environmental Working Group.