Congress: June 2008 Archives

I missed this one on Monday, but it's a perfect example of Congressional incompetence that spans party lines:

...in budget years 2003 through 2007, Senate restaurants racked up deficits of $4.7 million...

Things are so bad, the Senate is moving to privatize the restaurants:

The Senate last week passed a bill authorizing Senate restaurants, now run by the Architect of the Capitol, to go private, ending months of back-and-forth between Democrats appalled by the operation's money-losing ways and other Democrats worried that restaurant workers would get thrown out like the ham bones.

The measure is expected to win easy approval in the House, where privately run restaurants and food courts run profits and draw good crowds every day of House members and employees, tourists and disaffected Senate staff.

The really sad part is that some Senators tried to block privatization because they feared a responsible business might, you know, act like a responsible business:

But Feinstein's efforts to change the system ran into obstacles from four Democratic senators: Robert Menendez of New Jersey, Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, Barbara Mikulski of Maryland and Sherrod Brown of Ohio, who questioned whether current workers would face lower wages, reduced benefits and be deprived of union representation.

Remember this the next time one of these morons starts preaching about fiscal responsibility.