Shouldn't Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell Pay Full Price for Their Goddamned Lousy Haircuts?
The Dayton Daily News (one of the most consistently interesting regional papers in the country) has a great story on the spendthrift ways of the U.S. Senate, the World's Greatest Deliberative Body that has been unable or unwilling to pass a budget for coming up on four years straight.
It turns out that the Senate excels not so much in deliberating but in flushing tax dollars down the toilet. To wit:
Last year the Senate Hair Care barbershop/salon ran a $401,000 deficit providing $20 cuts to senators, staff and members of the public who visited the shop in the basement of the Russell Office Building, according to Terry Gainer, the sergeant-at-arms and doorkeeper of the Senate, whose wide-ranging duties include overseeing the hair care operation.
You got that? A group of folks not particularly known for their flowing locks are managing to drop almost half-a-million of your tax dollars on their very special heads.
It's not just shaves and haircuts, of course. As the News reports:
The legislative branch budget has grown 73 percent since 2000. Although Congress cut funding by 2.7 percent in 2011 and 5.2 percent last year, the 2013 appropriations request of $4.5 billion is up 4.8 percent over 2012. Embedded in those appropriations is a vast menu of services, an army of staff and an array of supplies, equipment and facilities supporting the 100 senators and 435 voting members and six non-voting members of the House of Representatives….
While senators and representatives receive $174,000, the Speaker of the House is paid $223,000 annually. The president pro tempore of the Senate and the majority and minority leaders in the House and Senate are paid $193,400 annually….
Congress members also receive:
- A generous pension that allows a member to retire at 62 with a full pension after five years of civilian federal service.
- Rides on a private subway system that runs between offices, committee rooms and the Capitol.
- Up to 96 cents per mile for mileage reimbursement.
- Free postage—known as "franking"—for mailings to constituents.
Read the whole story. And then tell your senators to stop subsidizing their hairdos and hairdon'ts with your precious tax dollars! There's about 30 Haircuttery joints within a dozen miles of the Capitol, fer chrissakes.
Remember the old management saw about "leading by example"? Yeah, well, the legislative branch sure does. Which helps explain why gross federal debt is above 100 percent of the economy and shows essentially no sign of ever coming down absent some sort of global-warming induced meteor attack. If that's what it takes to make Harry Reid, Mitch McConnell, and the rest to pay full price for their own goddamned haircuts and dye jobs, then so be it.
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In fairness, $20 is about the going rate for a men’s haircut in Washington. I think it is the people running the shop who are getting over rather than the Congress creatures.
You can say that, but bet your ass they’re in on it. Replace the barber shop with a hoi polloi SuperCuts that makes money at $20 and see watch those Congress ceatures heads explode. No way they’d get their hair cut there.
Goddammit DC is a ripoff. If a barber tried to charge me $15 for a haircut, I’d tell him to cram his clippers up his ass.
THIS. I was going to point out that in my neck of the woods, Great Clips/ SuperCuts/ Fantastic Sam’s et al are around $15.00 for a hair cut, but it sounds like $20 is normal for D.C.
But still, you can’t expect a congress critter who makes $174,000 a year to go get their cut at one of those places! They might actually run into normal peons, aka “citizens” out there!
I got a nice barbershop that charges $14 for a cut and hot towel head massage. They take good care of their equipment too. No razor burn on the back of your neck.
*wonders how much Gillespie pays for his haircuts*
Hundreds and hundreds. Even the evil Kochtopus can barely afford it.
Nick actually spends up to two hours every day getting his hair cut. It grows so fast and so thick that his barbers need specialized equipment just to comb it.
Like Kryptonite scissors?
You can’t hope to control that mop. You can only hope to contain it.
Nick is actually Steve Smith?
Global warming–is there nothing it can’t do? If I’d been aware that it could attract asteroids, I’d have been less skeptical.
We should tie Congressional pay to the performance of the economy.
Look at Lucious Locks Gillespie lording it over those of us who are not so well-endowed. Again. This reason obsession with cosmetology has got to go.
Last year the Senate Hair Care barbershop/salon ran a $401,000 deficit providing $20 cuts to senators, staff and members of the public who visited the shop
I get my hair cut for $12. WTF:LKJLKWQ:OIUBOPWIUBWIOJHJJHWJUWKL
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Sorry, that’s what happens when you slam your forehead on your keyboard.
I thought either a) heart attack or b) toddler in the room
c) cat.
I pay $20 for a buzz cut. Plus tip.
I pay $15. Every five years or so.
I pay $10. Barber shop is run by asian ladies and is across the street from a marine corps facility.
Want to slow down the corruption in DC?
End this:
A generous pension that allows a member to retire at 62 with a full pension after five years of civilian federal service
And:
Make congressional seats a part time job, no pay.
No more career politics. It’s a damn public service, not a career. Until we do this, nothing will change, except for the worse.
Uh, no. It’s not the pay, it’s the power. Pensions and measly paychecks? Do you think that’s why they do it or how they make their money? It’s the connections and the lobbying.
It is the size and power of the government that creates this situation. Only reducing it can change anything, and that isn’t happening.
I know that. But we should start by making it a part time job with no pay.
We also have to cut the size of government and outlaw cronyism. Reduce the size of the welfare state and end corporate welfare.
We have a lot to do. Why not start with ending career politics? We just saved a couple billion right there according to that chart.
we should start by making it a part time job with no pay.
Make it illegal in perpetuity throughout the universe to profit from books, speaking engagements, endorsements, etc. as soon as one files to run for office.
I think all of those things are ok. It’s the cronyism that should be illegal, and it should carry a long prison sentence for anyone convicted of it, plus forfeiture of all the money gained by engaging in it.
“Make it illegal in perpetuity throughout the universe to profit from books, speaking engagements, endorsements, etc.”
I’d prefer to keep the first amendment. Maybe just execute all politicians when they leave office.
Perhaps I was a bit harsh.
How about: Make the pension -1*salary*(years served).
Part time I could live with, but no pay? Then only rich people will even run for Congress. We really need to tar and feather them when they cross the line. Only then will they behave themselves. Only then.
Nope. Anyone could do it. Let them meet a few times a year to vote on things. Anyone with a job can do this. Pay for their expenses for travel and board, and time off work, if needed, but no salary.
Only rich people run for congress now.
I agree with the tar and feathers.
It is the size and power of the government that creates this situation.
yup…it’s how guys like Reid, Chuck Schumer, and others spend their entire adults lives in DC – no private sector experience at all – and are millionaires.
Episiarch|2.11.13 @ 11:30AM|#
Uh, no. It’s not the pay, it’s the power
“is like I tell you Manny…. a first you get the money….then a you get the power…THEN you get the women. Is how it works in this country”
It’s the connections and the lobbying.
We should make it so that they forfeit all their wealth when they take office. Then they are forced to live the rest of their life on their generous pension. Any additional income they make is taxed at a 100% rate, regardless of source, no deductions. Any gifts received are taxed at 100% of value. Violators are severely punished and publicly shamed.
Pay for economic performance, with bonuses for not violating the Constitution, engaging in unnecessary wars, etc.
If we did that, how would they come up with the trillions that they owe us for decades of corruption? They would have to steal it from us, again.
Make their potential compensation very high. Like if the economy performs, they don’t violate the Constitution, etc., they can make up to a billion/year. Much cheaper than the current situation.
Actually, make it $100 million/year. Not like they’re going to make that anywhere else.
an army of staff
I realize this qualifies as “making terroristic threats against the United States Congress” but what if we actually made these worthless lying parasites do their own jobs?
and
The legislative branch budget has grown 73 percent since 2000.
Holy Goatfucking Jeezis. Thanks, GWB and the rest of you small government balanced budget Republicans!
Pay for their own haircuts? Where do you think this is? Somalia?
Who wants to live in a country where millionaire legislators have to pay for their own hairdos.
I pay very close to zero for any given haircut, and don’t have a single penny of subsidization. I bought a set of clippers for $31 back in 1998, and have not paid for a single haircut since.
You also look like a crazed hobo and you probably have no idea how close you come on a daily basis to being shot by police.
He had better not come to Seattle, the SPD would shoot him in a heartbeat.
No way, not with Super Dunphy on the beat, insuring justice and utopia for all Seattleites.
It’s true, and he does a wonderful job. Here’s a pic of MLR to prove it.
Er, MLG
I’m laughing my ass off because I’m imagining how they would respond if you privatized and replaced it with a leased SuperCuts that actually makes money at $20 a whack.
“SuperCuts? You think we’re a bunch of dorks or something? Only dorks go to SuperCuts!”
Exactly. Fantastic Sams FTW!
a $401,000 deficit providing $20 cuts to senators, staff and members of the public
So their actual operating budget is presumably ten million dollars or more. But if the federal government did not provide this service, those high value targets would be forced to risk their lives on the mean streets of Our Nation’s Capitol.
Yes, yes. Go on. . . .
For half a million dollars we could probably just flood the whole capital once a year with Nair and flea dip. If they can’t cut the budgets, we’ll cut their hair!
I’m so fucking cheap I bought a clipper set for $20 and run it over my scalp every couple weeks.
#5 in the winter, #2/#3 in the summer.
Had it for…I thinkn 4 years now. So I’m $5 a YEAR for haircuts, bitches.
/cheap sonofabitch
The “barbers” are topless, right?
Haircut, $20.-
Gratuity, $280.-
Yeah, but they all look like Monica Lewinsky
I’d go.
Bow chicka wow wow
Monica Lewinsky – single, living with her mother and still struggling with her weight – but ‘set to make $12m with a tell-all book about her affair with Clinton’
At 40 you are no longer “struggling” with your weight. You are just fat.
I wouldn’t necessarily say that’s so. I inexplicably lost a shitton of weight a few years ago (the only theories I have are grief and hormones), then gained another shitton when I quit smoking. I’m just now figuring out the best way for me to get rid of it and it’s slow-going.
Methamphetamines.
I prefer downers – that’s probably part of my problem.
I get that, Kay-Kay. But Lewinsky’s weight has never seemed like something she struggled with all that much. All the years she’s been int he public eye and she’s never been less than a kindly put zaftig.
Leave her alone about her weight; she must want to be that size.
I’m just now figuring out the best way for me to get rid of it and it’s slow-going.
Sounds like you just need to start smoking again.
Start smoking again.
The wost thing about fat girls is all the lifting and searching involved in figuring out where to put it.
The nice thing about really fat girls is that it doesn’t matter where you put it. Just find a moist fold and go to town.
I’ll “weight” for the movie.
Also, wasn’t she going to be a handbag mogul?
At 40 you are no longer “struggling” with your weight. You are just fat.
Oh she’s struggling alright, just not in the way they mean.
every quality barber shop has a human humidor.
Palmas Cigars, Denver CO.
Hand rolled cigars, Nice walk-in humidor, colorado wine tasting room, and two barber chairs. Located next to “The Whiskey Bar”…so…like the best possible business plan.
I always thought that what they said about lawyers being shitty tippers was an overstatement until I worked as a waiter around the corner from a building that housed several law firms. I never got more than five percent off any customer in a suit. Being that most legislators are lawyers, I doubt they tip a dollar if anything at all.
Why tip somebody for doing their job? If they want more money then they should charge more money. That’s what I do.
/lawyer
And they wonder why they are almost universally despised?
Something I learned when I volunteered to sell candy for charity in the middle of a street intersection for Kiwanis Key Club or whatever it was, so I could get out of class back in 8th grade.
You want to put money in the can to make up for all the candy you pilfered and ate standing out there, you go up to the shitboxes.
The lady in the rusty 80’s Ford with the muffler dragging on the pavement will pitch in $2 for the charity and maybe take a tootsie roll if you press her, or one per grubby rugrat.
The lady in the new Mercedes, if she can be bothered to roll down the window at all, will hand you a dime and take $2 worth of candy for the Precious One squealing in the back.
They ain’t rich for no reason.
People don’t accumulate wealth by spending money.
They accumulate wealth by earning more than they spend. I delivered pizza to a professional baseball player back in the late 90’s. He was literally the $6 million dollar man at the time. He and the babysitter always tipped $10 which was 25-50% of whatever they ordered. His (I’m assuming) ex-stripper wife always asked for the change (to the penny) and then gave $1. Some people are studying for the bar. Others are dancing on it. They’re all assholes.
In fairness, I would guess it has less to do with income level or savings accounts than it has to do with car preference. That the Mercedes owners are rich is just a projection on my part. They could be about to get their Mercedes repo’d. Myself, I’ve never owned a new car (which boggles some of my family, because they know I could walk into a dealership and probably buy any car on the lot cash in full, I just wouldn’t ever, because if I actually did that kind of stupid thing I wouldn’t continue to be able to).
Probably it is that people who are concerned primarily with projecting status are stingy bastards always looking to inch ahead of everyone else.
All the same, you must be counterintuitive if you want to fill the can. Skip the mercedes and go for the shitboxes. If you’re a waiter, ignore the suits who look loaded and give your best service to the average looking shmucks. That’s my consistent experience. It also explains why the trophy wife would be more stingy than the bread winner, he just wants poon, she wants to be Upper Crust.
The last Merc owner I knew did it as a matter of practicality when it diesel fuel was cheap, and continued to drive it well after diesel became more expensive than regular. That car simply would not die.
it
Yeah, what’s up with that shit? I thought the whole point of diesel was to be cheaper than gas.
When only truckers used diesel, taxes were lower on it in an effort to subsidize the industry. Once consumers started buying diesel cars after the OPEC embargo, the taxes went up.
Then there are the regulations that keep lowering and lowering the allowable amount of sulfur in the fuel. Increased processing increases price.
Then there’s supply and demand. With more people using it, naturally demand goes up. Supply however, since diesel, fuel oil, and jet fuel are basically the same thing, has not kept pace.
Yeah, what’s up with that shit? I thought the whole point of diesel was to be cheaper than gas.
More torque, longer engine life, less fuel usage per mile, more smog to blow into the CRX stopped next to you at tailpipe level.
Diesel being cheaper was a bonus for a while, but those days have passed. The additional cost of fuel basically balances with the increased economy at this point.
Bullshit. Assholes are assholes, regardless of economic standing. You just remember the rich (or rich-looking) assholes more because of the incongruity. Most peoples’ wealth has nothing to do with the decision to overpay for a charity candy bar.
Not my experience at all.
Of course individuals are individuals, and they aren’t under strict rules to conform to stereotypes. Even the rare true stereotypes are only generally true.
But if you want to maximize your opportunity by playing the odds, my experience says on average, the more loaded they look the less generous they are.
Stereotypes wouldn’t exist if they were not grounded in some truth, uncomfortable and politically correct though it may be.
I can tell you have never worked as a waiter before.
Really?
I’ve been a waiter, a pizza delivery boy, a charity candy salesman (for a day), a used car salesman (for a month), a door-to-door knife salesman (for several months), and a ton of other shit.
My comment was to Brandon.
The things they say about used car salesmen are true, by the way. They are viscious assholes and I didn’t last very long because nobody talks to me like that. The customers were mostly a piece of cake. The manager was Satan, and my coworkers sold their grandmothers to him.
My stepfather manages a team of car salesmen. I know.
Well I always tip at least 20% so there is at least one of us.
We should tie Congressional pay to the performance of the economy.
Speaking of terroristic threats…
they all look like Monica Lewinsky
As long as they don’t look like Janet Napolitano.
Or Maxine Waters.
I would take that over Elana Kegan.
Suuuuuuure
The topless barbers all look like Mitch McConnell.
one of the most consistently interesting regional papers in the country
You know Nick, I love you. But FFS, if you really think I believe that you sit down and regularly read 75-100 regional papers and somehow the Dayton Daily News rose to the top, and that the fact that you live in Ohio doesn’t have anything to do with your opinion…poppycock.
Leave it to reason to go for the capillary rather than the jugular. Don’t you realize the cost of tonsuring these selfless public servants is less than a rounding error?
COSTMOTARIANZZZZ!!!!!!!!!
Better get your ass movin’ Sparky. You wouldn’t want to miss the food truck.
Capillary slashes strike the public where they understand value. Most people can’t comprehend dealing with billions and trillions. Everyone knows the value of a haircut and that rich people should pay for their own. Things like this make everyone rightly loathe Congress.
What’s a haircut?
An opposing viewpoint: Cheap Pay, Lousy Politicians
Nick, things are much better than they used to be. Back in the ’70s I had a girlfriend who worked for Fla. Rep. Claude Pepper (used to be famous). When his wife had a stroke, two of his staffers moved in with her in Florida to take care of her. One of my girlfriend’s jobs was to go the congressional “store” to buy cartons of cigarettes, tax free, with office petty cash and then mail them with the congressional frank to Florida. Ask your congressman to send you free cigarettes. It might work!
Was there a congressional brothel?
Why bother? They already have staffers, interns, and pages.
ahem, please don’t forget us lobbyists. of course, we’re high priced and as escorts don’t compete with those you listed.
Oh, you’re right. I regret the omission.
For just the price of a large campaign donation, you can send your little special snowflake to Washington to be the sex toy of your favorite Congressman or woman. Nothing says dedication to the cause by allowing your leaders to use your children for sexual gratification.
I remember Claude Pepper. Once one of the living fossils of Congress. Finally lost his seat the only way it was ever going to happen, by dying in office.
Pepper was the target of the mythical George Smathers “redneck speech:
He survived the commie hunts of the late forties and early fifties, in spite of being on the extreme Red fringe of the New Deal. However he did lose his Senate seat in 1950 but probably more due to his turning against harry Truman than because he was a Red.
He remade himself and in the sixties managed to get himself elected to Congress from Miami. As Chair of the new House Select Committee on Aging, he was probably just about as responsible as anyone for the absolute failure of even the most lukewarm reforms being made in Social Security or Medicare.
I had not heard Vanneman’s story above, but it does not surprise me in the slightest. I always believed that Claude Pepper was exactly the kind of politician who would have that sense of self-entitlement that would leads to that kind of corruption without even the slightest pang of conscience.
The seventies was the time of the Wayne Hayes Sex scandal too.
Printing money is so much cheaper electronically.
Perhaps their haircuts would be cheaper in Photoshop, too.
Caption for that first pic:
“The money comes in, the money goes out; you can’t explain that.”
I am having a hard time understanding how it even costs four hundred large to run a barber shop for Senators, let alone that it runs a deficit that large.
How much are they paying those barbers?
Isaac Bartram|2.11.13 @ 2:25PM|#
I am having a hard time understanding how …
Government.
Get it to run a barber shop, and it *will* run a half-million dollar deficit. And they’ll claim the problem is that their budget is *too constraining* is why.
Did you not notice the story from last week or so that programs to find ‘cost savings’…. were running wildly over budget?
THIS IS HOW THEY OPERATE
Isaac Bartram|2.11.13 @ 2:25PM|#
I am having a hard time understanding how …
Government.
Get it to run a barber shop, and it *will* run a half-million dollar deficit. And they’ll claim the problem is that their budget is *too constraining* is why.
Did you not notice the story from last week or so that programs to find ‘cost savings’…. were running wildly over budget?
THIS IS HOW THEY OPERATE
GILMORE, it doesn’t matter how many times you repeat it, the liberals still won’t get it. 🙂