When you hire children to do adult work, you get the kind of results we’ve gotten from Congress. With no personal liability for their actions, the spoiled brats just raised the debt limit, failed to find new sources of revenue, cut billions from services delivered mostly to the needy and then walked off without taking action on the FAA legislation needed to restore their ability to continue to work and collect taxes that are currently being pocketed by the airlines.

Since it’s hard to fire our Congress, maybe the first thing to do is not pay them, or their staff until they come back to work and vote on the FAA bill? Since those savings won’t make up for the billion dollars in easy revenue they are about to leave on the table, we should be able to start deducting it from their campaign funds. We’ve got bills to pay and work to do- and if they won’t do it, they should pay the bills.

From the New York Times:

After dealing with the debt crisis, Senate negotiators tried and failed on Tuesday to end a stalemate over temporary financing for the Federal Aviation Administration, leaving 4,000 agency employees out of work and relying on airport safety inspectors to continue working without pay.

Ray LaHood said the safety of passengers was not at risk.

The partial agency shutdown, which began on July 23 and is likely to continue at least through Labor Day, has also idled tens of thousands of construction workers on airport projects around the country. Dozens of airport inspectors have been asked by the F.A.A. to work without pay and to charge their government travel expenses to their personal credit cards to keep airports operating safely.

Air traffic controllers and airplane inspectors, who are paid with separate accounts, have continued to work, but workers who oversee research on aviation systems, grants for airports and facilities and operations equipment have been furloughed.

If the stalemate continues through Labor Day, the government could lose roughly $1 billion in tax revenues on airline ticket sales….

The House began its August recess on Monday night, and the Senate followed Tuesday, leaving little hope for a resolution until Congress returns in September. President Obama, in remarks after the Senate’s passage of the debt ceiling bill, urged Congress to break the impasse, which he described as “another Washington-inflicted wound on America.”

The impasse centers on disagreements between Republicans and Democrats over a program that subsidizes commercial air service to rural airports. But behind the scenes, a larger fight has been taking place over federal rules on labor elections in the airline industry.

Randy Babbitt, the F.A.A. administrator, said in a conference call with reporters on Tuesday that the agency was depending on the “professionalism” of airport safety inspectors to continue their work without being paid, because their jobs are paid for with money that is awaiting Congressional authorization….

“We are going to lose $1 billion in the aviation trust fund if we leave this Congress for the month of August and we don’t extend the F.A.A.,” Ms. Hutchison said.

via Stalemate in Senate Leaves 4,000 Out of Work at F.A.A. – NYTimes.com.

Withholding the pay of our millionaires in Congress won’t hurt any of them, but, withholding the pay of their huge staffs may get their attention. Taking a month-long vacation (many to campaign and raise campaign funds) while the nation struggles with debt and staying solvent is criminal. And while withholding staff pay may get their attention, the only thing they all truly care about is getting re-elected – so taking their campaign kittys away or at least depleting them considerably, may stop this malarkey from continuing.

They were given a job to do. It’s time to git’r done. Help spread the word and let’s send the bums back to work- or dock their pay.