Modern-day Democrats have never been known to excel at “reading the room,” but a group of “progressive” Capitol Hill staffers seem intent on proving the left’s tone deafness with an amazing demand to Congressional leaders: they want to work fewer hours but still get paid a full-time salary.
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You see, these poor souls are sometimes asked to work long hours and, gosh, isn’t that unfair? It’s only right that they be rewarded with lighter work schedules.
The group asking for this perk is called the Congressional Progressive Staff Association (CPTA), and they sent a letter to Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) Thursday pleading with them to “consider adopting a proposal that would improve worker satisfaction, increase staff retention in Congress, and model a more sustainable approach to work on a national level.”
That proposal? A 32-hour workweek when Congress isn’t in session.
The proposal actually goes further, giving district-based staffers at least a 20 percent reduction in their working hours when their House member is in D.C.
Under the proposal, congressional staffers would still work long hours when their boss is around. But when Congress is in session, district office staffers would be entitled to an abbreviated, 20-percent-lighter schedule, and when it is not, D.C.-based staff would have a lighter week.
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To give this harebrained idea some context, and based on the House schedule for January and February of 2025, D.C.-based staffers would have reduced schedules for at least ten days per month, while the district crews would have ample free time during the 2/3rds of the month that Congress is in D.C. And they’d all be fat and happy because they’d be pulling in full-time salaries.
Nice work if you can get it.
But wait, there’s more. The charitable folks at the CPTA would like to eventually extend this benefit beyond Capitol Hill and enact “a more sustainable workweek” for every American.
“We do not want a 32-hour workweek to just be another special benefit for Congressional staff,” the group said in its letter. “We hope that by adopting this policy, Members of Congress can help to advance the discussion around a more sustainable workweek as a national priority and model how it can work for private and public employers across the country and the world.”
And they’ve got a friend in Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who has actually introduced legislation to make a 32-hour workweek the law of the land. Sanders claims that reduced work schedules with full-time pay are not a “radical” idea because France, Norway and Denmark are already doing it.
I’m sure we’d all like to live in the rainbows and lollipops world of Bernie Sanders, but we don’t have that luxury as we grind through our full-time workweeks — and we sure as heck don’t want the U.S. to be more like France, Norway and Denmark.
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Even Democrats are laughing at the absurdity of it all.
Here’s the thing: you take a job on Capitol Hill knowing that you will be working long hours. The hours are lousy, the work can be mundane, you don’t get paid enough to live extravagantly in an expensive city, and your boss likely won’t thank you for your efforts. That’s called paying your dues. If you can’t hack it, feel free to join the real world where many Americans have to work multiple jobs in order to keep food on the table and a roof over their heads.
Time to grow up, progressives.
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