"Hey, Congress: Keep Your Day Jobs"

With the change in the Congress occurring quite soon, more weird ideas start to pop up. "We use to pay farmers not to grow crops. Let's pay congressmen to stay out of Washington DC," says Louisiana Republican Governor Bobby Jindal. Jindal and some other conservatives out there want to go back to the "good old days" when being a congressman was not a full time job and back to the time when they worked part time. They want to make congressmen closer to the general public by making them play "by the same rules as the rest of us". While any radical change is unlikely to happen soon, we do have to remember that Congress has not been very popular in the recent years, so something needs to happen, right? I can see the benefit of having congressmen also working in other things being beneficial, like working for a nonprofit group or other small business type of things, but not having our part time Congress be filled with people running large companies. If that happens, there goes regulation, especially with the conservative base growing with the change in seat allocation. We also have to realize that if they do become part time, they might be less focused on good policy as they have to spread their attention out to other things. With a part time congress that means that the Executive branch becomes even stronger as he won't have to deal with pesky congress for longer. Part time congress also makes it more of a part time people's voice with a strong leader. Part time congress might also lead to a conflict of interest, let us all do something that benefits Google or Yahoo.

So what do you think of a part time Congress? Tell me your thoughts?

-a G.U. from the Spiral King