Earn me a degree and I can work weekends...

This is amazing to me, shocking I say, just shocking!

WASHINGTON - Forget the minimum wage. Or outsourcing jobs overseas. The labor issue most on the minds of members of Congress yesterday was their own: They will have to work five days a week starting in January. The horror.

Rep. Steny H. Hoyer, the Maryland Democrat who will become House majority leader and is writing the schedule for the next Congress, said members should expect longer hours than the brief week they have grown accustomed to.

"I have bad news for you," Hoyer told reporters. "Those trips you had planned in January, forget 'em. We will be working almost every day in January, starting with the 4th."

The reporters groaned. "I know, it's awful, isn't it?" Hoyer empathized.

For lawmakers, it is awful, compared with what they have come to expect. For much of this election year, the legislative week started late Tuesday and ended by Thursday afternoon -- and that was during the relatively few weeks the House wasn't in recess.

Next year, members of the House will be expected in the Capitol for votes each week by 6:30 p.m. Monday and will finish their business about 2 p.m. Friday, Hoyer said.

Hoyer and other Democratic leaders say they are trying to repair the image of Congress, which was so anemic this year it could not meet a basic duty: to approve spending bills that fund government. By the time the gavel comes down on the 109th Congress on Friday, members will have worked a total of 103 days. That's seven days fewer than the infamous "Do-Nothing Congress" of 1948.

Hoyer said members can bid farewell to extended holidays, the kind that awarded them six weekdays to relax around Memorial Day, when most Americans get a single day off. He didn't mention the month-long August recess, the two-week April recess or the weeks off in February, March and July.

He said members need to spend more time in the Capitol to pass laws and oversee federal agencies. "We are going to meet sufficient times, so the committees can do their jobs on behalf of the American people," he said.

"Keeping us up here eats away at families," said Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.), who typically flies home on Thursdays and returns to Washington on Tuesdays. "Marriages suffer. The Democrats could care less about families -- that's what this says."

Those damn dastardly Democrats! How DARE they! How dare they expect Republicans to actually work FIVE days a week! What could those anti-familites be thinking!

I wonder if Rep. Kingston sees any hypocracy in what he says. After all, hes' complaining about how working five days a week is going to "eat away at his family." Does he think at all about the father who has to work five days a week at one job and then go to his second job on weekends or a few nights a week while the mother works many hours a week as well, at her part time job (for probably minimum wage, that Rep. Kingston has voted against increasing for the past dozen years or so). What effect does working so many days a week have on this couple's marriage and family?

Actually, Rep. Kingston doesn't care about those people, they don't vote for him anyway, I'm sure. And the people that do probably only work three days a week as well.

POLT

Ya know, in my life I've slept with more men than are named and/or numbered in the Bible...Old and New Testament put together. - Arnold, Torch Song Trilogy