Danger: Hydraulics Required

"Congress takes up many silly, superfluous, but essentially harmless bills every session. Usually these consist of naming post offices or proclaiming National Caesar Salad Month, which allows constituents back home to believe that their Representative or Senator actually does something valuable. As we have seen lately, it keeps people from asking what the hell Congress has done in its first 100 days.

However, sometimes they adopt resolutions so laughable that one has to bring hydraulic jacks to place one's jaw back in place. This week, Congress plans to dedicate a coming month to -- are you ready for this? -- financial literacy! HR 273 promises to highlight all the failings of the American people, in the biggest case of the pot calling the kettle black.

Perhaps Congress might want to consider leading by example, rather than dedicating a month of the year to scolding its constituents. They refer to the fact that "consumer debt totaled $2,400,000,000,000 in 2006, of which credit card debt alone exceeded $825,000,000,000," but fail to note that Congress once again spent hundreds of billions more than it received. They note that personal savings dropped last year for the first time since the Great Depression, but they fail to note that Congress still passes supplemental spending bills that go directly towards the nation's debt without any accountability in the budget. Rep. Hinojosa and his colleagues decry the fact that only 42% of the nation's workers have calculated how much they will need for retirement, while successive Congresses have done everything possible to avoid reforming the coming insolvencies of Social Security and Medicare."