The job takes up so much time
Marjorie Taylor Greene is annoyed because They Don’t Pay Her Enough.
Earlier this week, the Republican representative from Georgia appeared on journalist Glenn Greenwald’s podcast and expressed concern about her congressional salary, which according to public records is $174,000 annually.
Greene told Greenwald: “Becoming a member of Congress has made my life miserable. I made a lot more money before I got here. I’ve lost money since I’ve gotten here.”
She’s welcome to quit. She wasn’t drafted.
Additionally, Greene complained about the amount of time her congressional work consumes, saying: “The nature of this job, it keeps members of Congress and senators in Washington so much of the time, too much of the time … that we don’t get to go home and spend more time with our families, our friends … or maybe just be regular people because this job is so demanding. It’s turned into practically year-round.”
Gee, what a surprise that being part of the legislature of a huge complicated country turns out to be demanding and time-consuming. Who could possibly have foreseen that?
Also, people are mean to her.
The congresswoman said: “I have people come up to me and say crazy things to me out of the blue in public places that they believe because they read it on the internet or saw it on some news show about me.”
Even if you explained your post to her with infinite patience she would never grasp the extent of her stupidity and hypocrisy.
174K a year comes out to $19.86 per hour, for every single hour, waking, sleeping, on vacation, or making stupid comments on journalists’ podcast. Sounds nice. I wouldn’t mind being paid that much!
I expect that many of her constituents have actually year-round jobs.
Perhaps she could ask them for advice on time management?
Members of Congress who don’t really want to be MoCs, because they want to be “influencers” or podcasters or Fox News commentators or some other, more lucrative gig, is not a new problem, but it does seem to be getting worse.
It used to be that people would stay in Congress because they cared, at least a little, about policy. But now you have a lot of Members, especially on the GOP side, who either don’t care about policy, and/or know that they can’t implement it anyway. Partly due to gridlock and a divided Congress and the filibuster, but also because a lot of GOP policies can’t really be addressed through laws.
So I expect we’ll see a lot of a revolving door: minor social media personality uses that name recognition and funding to get to Congress, then does some dumb grandstanding on committees or whatever to become more famous, then quits Congress to become a major social media personality.
Upon moving to Alabama, I was surprised to learn that being in the state legislature was a part-time job, that they had a ridiculously short session, and that they were not expected to give up their other jobs. Perhaps it’s the same way in Georgia next door. She may indeed have had to give up income opportunities to do the federal job.
Too damn bad. She’s been reelected, she should have known all this before even running the first time.
These are the people who complain about what teachers make; most of us don’t even break into the $100K range. I have been teaching for over 20 years, and I don’t break into the $100K range. And in spite of the nine-month schedule, the summer ‘off’, it turns out it is really a year round job! And we only get paid for nine months of it. If we teach in the summer, we get paid more, but even with teaching three summer classes in 2021, I made less than $90K. Don’t know yet about 2022; haven’t done our taxes yet. But it won’t break $100K.
Like Greene, I am in a job with a lot of responsibility, that has a lot of impact on our future. Unlike Greene, I understand that, and do it because I consider it important, even though other jobs might pay more. I have many times more education than she does, and came out of school with huge student loan debt. We argue that doctors and lawyers should be well paid because of student loans; what about the rest of us? And since I paid it off some years ago, I didn’t benefit from Biden’s student loan forgiveness.
She needs to grow up.
Wow, she sure sounds like some entitled careerist pining to be taken under the wing of some corporate lobbyist. “I need a top-up here! Can anyone give me a top-up?” She has no idea of the concept of public service, particularly who is serving and who is doing the servicing. God knows she’s not interested in having to sacrifice. That’s not what she signed up for. She’s mistaken notoriety for worthiness, and has provided any future opponents, inside the Republican Party and beyond with loads of ammunition with which to portray her as the sort of out-of-touch fat cat who’s only in it for themselves.
How stupid of her not to know what the job entailed before running for election. She probably thought getting elected was the hard part, that once she was in office she could coast on her charm and cleverness*, with money and offers of influence and power rolling in without actually having to expend any effort. Her opinions were correct, her positions suitably Trumpian, she hated all the right people (or, Left people); all she had to do was wait for the Republican cabal to see her value and indespensibility. Alas, no. Her value and indespensibilty are inside her head, and not in evidence to the outside world. No world-on-a-platter for MTG. Now she’s stuck putting in time and having to do work. I bet there’s a shit-ton of people among her constituents who do a lot more than she does, and for a lot less money. I would also bet that a large percentage of them would do a better job than her, if they had the opportunity.
*Yes, you can see how this plan would fail.
Greenwald…?
Earlier this week, the Republican representative from Georgia appeared on journalist Glenn Greenwald’s podcast and expressed concern about her congressional salary, which according to public records is $174,000 annually.
Greene told Greenwald