Greased Melon

A friend pointed me to this link about the new work schedule the 110th Congress will face.

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.

Damn! That would be a sweet deal! But then I wondered what kind of hours the 109th Congress had.

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.

!

If only we all had such a sweet deal. How much would I have to earn per hour to make out that well? Hum…

I did a very loose count of the hours worked by the 109th and came up with 322. For the entire year. Seriously! I guessed they worked about 14 hours a week (3-5pm Tuesday, 8 hours (ha!) Wednesday, and 9am-2pm Thursday with an hour for lunch). Then using the House’s schedule, I added up the weeks worked. They averaged about three weeks a month during the session. And the session only went from January to early October.

The salary of most House members is $165,200. So, $165,200 / 322 hours = $513.04 per hour. Not too shabby! Hastert made $658.70 per hour while DeLay / Blunt / Boehner and Pelosi each made 569.89 as Majority and Minority Leaders.

The 110th won’t be so lucky. They’ll have to work nearly double the hours to earn their keep, coming in at a measly $256.52 per hour (the Speaker and Majority / Minority Leaders will earn $329.35 and $284.94, respectively).

Congressmen have had it rough lately. Dennis Moore (D-KS) recently said as much about the job in the Onion recently. Be sure to send your Representative some cookies for the holidays. They need a break.