Annabel Park: First Spending Cut: Paychecks for Congress

Annabel is a Maryland-based writer, filmmaker and speaker who is known for her innovative work in netroots/grassroots activism. She has made numerous TV and radio appearances and has been invited to speak throughout the U.S., Europe and Asia. She co-directed an award-winning documentary about America’s culture war over immigration, 9500 Liberty, with Eric Byler. She is the founder and president of Coffee Party USA, a growing grassroots, non-partisan network of over half a million people fighting for Wall Street reform, campaign finance reform, and tax code reform. She studied philosophy at Boston University and political theory at Oxford University as a Marshall Scholar. She was born in Seoul, South Korea and immigrated to Houston, TX when she was nine years old with her family. She grew up working at a truck diner owned by her parents.

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First Spending Cut: Paychecks for Congress

Annabel Park
Filmmaker & Democracy Advocate

Posted: 08/29/2012 3:07 pm

The new Gallup poll shows approval for Congress at 10 percent.

Congress — especially the 112th one — is a corrupt and failed institution. I’m not saying that they’re no decent people in Congress; I know that there are. But, the institution as a whole is a failure and it’s doing catastrophic damage to our country.

You could blame the culture in Washington or horrible campaign finance laws, but the fact remains that too many out of 435 members have submitted entirely to the status quo. They are selfish, bought by special interests, loyal to their party more than the country, and so rabid with hate for each other that they would rather hurt American people than give their opponents an electoral advantage.

The Republican members in particular, under the toxic leadership of McConnell, Cantor and Boehner, worked hard to deliberately slow down or sabotage economic recovery for electoral gain in 2012. In fact, world leaders, ratings agency and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) have repeatedly told Congressional leaders to stop politicizing the economy because it’s hurting not only America but the rest of the world.

Even now, the CBO keeps sending out warnings, ignored by members of Congress, that if they do not avert the fiscal cliff, a deep recession will ensue. They just don’t seem to care. They’re too busy memorizing their polished lies — err, talking points — to voters in this vicious election season.

The bottom line is that Congress members would rather win than govern even if it requires burning the whole house down. And that’s not why Congress was created, why we vote for members and why we pay them. They’re just not doing their jobs. Even worse, they’re playing a game with our lives.

Congress members spend 30 percent to 70 percent of their time raising money to for their campaigns. They are severely gridlocked and proudly get nothing done while we pay them six-figure salaries (average $174,000) with great health care and benefits. They turn around and blame everyone else, including the American people, for their failure to manage our money, one of their primary jobs. They never apologize for sucking at their jobs and they insist that they deserve to keep their jobs.

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Annabel Park: First Spending Cut: Paychecks for Congress