Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) set a very unambitious calendar for 2016, including a nearly two-month August recess. Yes, this is the party that is against paid time off for workers. But apparently being a Senator isn’t “work”, just ask Republican Marco Rubio, who missed the most votes of any senator running for president.
According to the schedule published, McConnell is giving the Senate the longest August break it has had in decades. They will be taking time off from July 18 – September 5, 2016. During the same time period in 2015, Republicans took four weeks off.
There are also tons of other “state work” periods, also known to you and yours as time not in Washington. Here’s a screengrab of the schedule, which is tentative and “identifies expected non-legislative periods (days that the Senate will not be in session).”
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Apparently their jobs that they fought so hard to get aren’t really very important. They don’t do much, anyway. It’s all very European. Many vacations, great pay, socialized benefits, and little work.
In a 2014 radio interview, Sen. Mitch McConnell laughed at the unemployed who had recently lost their benefits, as he promised to vote no on any UI extension. It’s easy to laugh at the unemployed when you yourself can stop working and still earn your regular salary, eh?
This brings to mind the House Republican leader — new Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI), who demanded that he have weekends off to spend time with his family, mind that he already gets more paid time off than most corporate CEOs and certainly the workers of The U.S., but doesn’t support paid time off for you because that would be a “federal entitlement”. It is actually more of a federal entitlement for Ryan to take paid time off, since we fund his benefits and paycheck.
Really, the Senate and the House are one big federal entitlement, and currently a perfect example of wasteful government spending, especially given their inability to do much when they are in session and their ever increasing days off.
Meanwhile, Democrats are making paid family leave a central issue for 2016, with Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders calling for a “Guaranteed Paid Vacation Act” that would provide 10 days of paid vacation for employees who have worked for an employer for at least one year.
Ten paid days off. That is what the American worker has to fight for; Meanwhile, Mitch McConnell- from the party of all for me none for thee – is giving the Senate the longest August recess they’ve had in decades.
But you shouldn’t be mad, because you see they feel entitled to that time off to campaign for their jobs. To make more promises about the things they aren’t really going to do. You are essentially paying them to campaign for a job they blow off once they get. Good times.
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