Letter to the Editor: Where is the outrage?
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Working people in our state should be angry.
If you work in a factory, drive a truck, stock shelves, work construction, care for patients, or run a small business, you are expected to show up and do your job. Try telling your employer you're going home for weeks while there's still work to be done, but you expect your full paycheck.
Yet Speaker Mike Johnson canceled scheduled House votes and sent members home until after the November midterm elections. Members of Congress continue receiving their congressional salaries during recess.
Where is the outrage?
Congress is supposed to represent us, not protect politicians from having to cast difficult votes before an election. It is also supposed to serve as a check on presidential power. That responsibility doesn't disappear because the president and the House majority belong to the same political party.
If Republicans believe the actions of President Donald Trump and his administration are right, then defend them. If they believe legislation is wrong, vote against it. But bring the issues to the floor, debate them publicly, and VOTE.
Don't shut down the House and go home because the votes might be politically uncomfortable.
Even Republican Rep. Ralph Norman called canceling the remaining votes "unacceptable" and argued that taxpayers shouldn't be paying members who go home to campaign rather than do the job taxpayers sent them to Washington to do.
I agree.
Working people don't get paid for refusing to show up. Why should Congress?
You wanted the job. You ran for the job. The taxpayers hired you to do the job.
So, stay in Washington, do the people's business, and take the votes.
And if congressional leaders decide members don't need to work, perhaps their paychecks shouldn't come out of the pockets of the Americans who still do. Let's continue working our job and send them home. VOTE.
Jerry Payne
Ripley