…And yet they tell us how to live
Every time there’s a debate about the economy, the Congress trots out all of these high-minded solutions hammered out in committees and caucuses telling each other how much Americans can afford to pay in taxes and how that money can be distributed to best serve the needs of the nation. But do they really know how markets work? Do they even pay their own bills?
From the Washington Post;
Year after year, decade upon decade, the U.S. Senate’s network of restaurants has lost staggering amounts of money — more than $18 million since 1993, according to one report, and an estimated $2 million this year alone, according to another.
The financial condition of the world’s most exclusive dining hall and its affiliated Capitol Hill restaurants, cafeterias and coffee shops has become so dire that, without a $250,000 subsidy from taxpayers, the Senate won’t make payroll next month.
The embarrassment of the Senate food service struggling like some neighborhood pizza joint has quietly sparked change previously unthinkable for Democrats. Last week, in a late-night voice vote, the Senate agreed to privatize the operation of its food service….
Imagine that – it costs us, the tax payers two-hundred and fifty thousand dollars just to make payroll for feeding a hundred senators (actually 99, because Ted Kennedy is at home) – and that’s JUST PAYROLL it doesn’t include napkins, food, overhead…just paying the people who work there. And tax payers are expected to subsidize their poor management of their own facilities. What?
They don’t make enough money to order some Papa John’s? Steak and egg breakfast at the Hawk and Dove (two blocks away) is twelve bucks. two blocks in the other direction is Union Station, there’s a McDonald’s there where they get the Egg McMuffin breakfast for 3 bucks.
The same people who called George Bush’s tax cuts “for the rich” need a 1/4 million dollar subsidy every month to pay the people who cook and bring them their food?
If they gave a rat’s ass about the people they serve, they’d go out into the economy and eat and close down their stupid exclusive eatery – put some money in the people’s pockets. And they can pay that stupid 10% restaurant tax the rest of us pay in DC.
