Lazy Federal Workers!

[monicaangela]

We often hear stories about lazy hourly wage workers who don't deserve an increase to $15 per hour. Perusing the news this morning I came across a very interesting article that I will display here with a link for your reading enjoyment. The article starts like this:

Have you heard about the federal workers who are refusing to do their jobs — while continuing to bill the taxpayers almost $1.5 million a year each?

That would be the 50-plus lazy United States senators who are refusing to fulfill their employment contracts and hold hearings on a new Supreme Court justice. They will continue to collect salaries averaging $174,000 a year — as well as coverage of total expenses of nearly $1.3 million a year each — despite nonperformance of their contracts.

You and I should try that in our own places of work. Good luck with that.

President Barack Obama on Wednesday nominated Merrick Garland, chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, for the Supreme Court. Senators, all from the Republican party, claim their refusal to hold hearings is a matter of principle.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/opinion-these-lazy-federal-workers-cost-us-dollar15-million-a-year/ar-BBqyXR7?ocid=spartanntp

As we haggle over who should be the democratic nominee, and who we hope wins the general, we neglect the fact that "we" are the employers of these people who so blatantly gain office and disregard the fact that they work for us. I believe it is time we begin to find ways to remove representatives that refuse to do their job.

[Initech]

1. Yup the real moochers of our paychecks!

[Wounded Bear]

2. K & R ...... nt

[lagomorph777]

3. Department of Treasury writes their paychecks...

...and last I checked, that's Executive Branch. I think fraudulently billing for hours not worked leaves one liable to prosecution (let's get the DOT Inspector General on that). Also, couldn't an executive order stop DOT from writing the paychecks when the recipients have publicly declared they are not working?

[monicaangela]

4. I think trying to go about it through Executive Order would be costly

I don't believe it would work. Executive orders have the full force of law when they take authority from a legislative power which grants its power directly to the Executive by the Constitution, or are made pursuant to Acts of Congress that explicitly delegate to the President some degree of discretionary power (delegated legislation). Like both legislative statutes and regulations promulgated by government agencies, executive orders are subject to judicial review, and may be struck down if deemed by the courts to be unsupported by statute or the Constitution. If the President tried to do this, he would probably be out of office by the time it went through the court. We, the people who send these representatives to congress need more power over them if they don't do their job. A referendum of some kind that does not take an election to pull off, I don't pretend to have the answer, but I believe someone smarter than I am should really be trying to figure out how to do this.

Executive order
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_order

[lagomorph777]

5. The checks would stop immediately; the Senate would be out of session before court convenes

Sure, they could eventually get it re-instated, given the imbalanced Supreme Court. But they'd lose a bunch of money in the meantime, and that would be expensive. Of course, most Senators probably make a lot more money on bribes than U.S. Treasury checks, but I'll bet it would annoy them.