(2008-06-10) — A week after the Senate decided, in a late-night voice vote, to privatize its money-losing food service operation, former Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton introduced rival legislation to “nationalize the Senate restaurants and to require every member and their staff to patronize these fine government-run facilities.”
Sen. Clinton said the operation has lost $18 million in the last 15 years while serving its relatively-wealthy clientèle, and immediately needs $250,000 in taxpayer cash just to make next month’s payroll, because the Senate “failed to mandate participation.”
“Convenient, prepared meals are a fundamental birthright,” said Sen. Clinton. “But this basic entitlement can’t work unless everyone eats every meal in a Senate restaurant.”
Meanwhile, across Capitol Hill, the House food service operation pays the government $1.2 million annually from the profits of its popular restaurants. It was privatized in the 1980s.
“We should not draw the conclusion that private enterprise works better than government,” said Sen. Clinton, “rather we need to boost taxes on the obscene windfall profits of the House restaurants to subsidize the Senate operation.”
27 responses so far ↓
1 Ms RightWing, Ink // Jun 9, 2008 at 9:17 am
Isn’t there a Harvey House anywhere? You could get food fast and who knows, maybe a wife
2 JamesonLewis3rd // Jun 9, 2008 at 9:40 am
Why are we feeding these fat cats, anyway?
Isn’t it enough that we’ve made them multi-millionaires?
Real Americans bag their lunch and they don’t have a secretary or maid or butler or valet or chauffeur or gardener or groom or nanny or PA to do it for them.
Thank you
3 Ms RightWing, Ink // Jun 9, 2008 at 9:43 am
Glober warming sizzles the heartland–Senators to prove point by making hodge-podge omelets on sidewalks.
Watch CNN for a government omelet coming your way soon ( suckah )
4 RedPepper // Jun 9, 2008 at 10:16 am
Let them eat
cakeArugula !5 Maggie // Jun 9, 2008 at 10:34 am
Red Pepper:
Let them eat MREs for 15 months.
(they already have egg on their face)
6 Fred Sinclair // Jun 9, 2008 at 10:50 am
Scott: The last paragraph cracked my funny bone (no splint required) “…that private enterprise works better than government…”
Gee whiz.. private enterprise only works better than government 98.8% of the time, (must allow for the US Patent Office that seems to do pretty good)
If I buy something, bananas, sweater. auto, etc., that I will personally use, it’s a first person use of my money. I, me, myself, Fred determines what I’m willing to get and pay for. [I'm concerned about both quality and price]
If I buy something for someone else, it’s a second person use of my money. [the price and quality will depend on how much I like the person for whom I'm buying it].
If I buy something with other peoples money that I will not use personally, it’s a third party purchase [I am concerned with neither price nor quality and couldn't care less]
By definition, 100% of all government purchases are third party purchases. (which is how we get $4,000.00 coffee makers on airplanes – that don’t even work properly most of the time. a wrench used by flight line mechanics that cost $375.00. A ladder to fasten on the edge of a F-16 cockpit – $17,000.00 – really!)
When England (under Margaret Thatcher) sold Jaguar to private enterprise – Jaguar was going bankrupt with it’s government ownership) the company did a U-turn and became profitable for the first time in years.
Not everybody knows, but Jaguar could not machine pistons that would fit properly in their engine blocks, they had to farm them out to Mercedes in Germany (private enterprise) until Thatcher sold them. Suddenly they began making perfect pistons.
Now anyone who understands economics doesn’t need that explained. Anyone who doesn’t understand it: go buy a copy of “Economics For Idiots”, which will spell it out for you.
Heirborn Ranger
7 Libby Gone // Jun 9, 2008 at 11:28 am
Ah Yes,
Like any fine Communist run program, it simply is lacking sufficient funds.
8 Hawkeye // Jun 9, 2008 at 12:40 pm
Way too funny Scott! … another CLASSIC!
9 Shelly // Jun 9, 2008 at 2:34 pm
Excellent, Scott! Isn’t it amazing how everyone knows the government can’t do anything efficiently, yet some want to have them do more?
10 camojack // Jun 9, 2008 at 3:44 pm
One of the reasons (besides my personal industriousness) that I often give for having as much as I do is that I bring my own lunch (or whatever that is at 3 AM) to work, which saves a lot of $$$.
That, and the generous blessings of the Almighty…
11 danheinrichs // Jun 9, 2008 at 4:07 pm
“. . .former Democrat presidential candidate. . .” It is such a wonderful, rich sounding phrase!
12 always right // Jun 9, 2008 at 5:01 pm
Of course, the only solution is ‘MORE taxes’.
13 Libby Gone // Jun 9, 2008 at 5:22 pm
Or better yet, raise the ‘consumption tax’ on the House Resturant patrons…..
14 Fred Sinclair // Jun 9, 2008 at 6:05 pm
HOUSING BILL CREATES NATIONAL FINGERPRINT REGISTRY
Posted June 9th, 2008 at 12.40pm in Entrepreneurship.
Sens. Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) authored a bill (with 11 co-sponsors, including Sen. Barack Obama) that was incorporated into a housing bill passed by the Senate Banking Committee 19-2 before the Memorial Day recess — a bill that creates a national fingerprint registry.
According to a Martinez press release, the language merely “create[s] national licensing and oversight standards for residential mortgage originators.â€
One of the standards, John Berlau of the Competitive Enterprise Institute says, may “require thousands of individuals working even tangentially in the mortgage and real estate industries — and not suspected of anything — to send their prints to the feds.â€
This is a step in the wrong direction — at least for a nation that preserves freedom.
Heirborn Ranger
15 Fred Sinclair // Jun 9, 2008 at 6:16 pm
../..
16 Fred Sinclair // Jun 9, 2008 at 6:27 pm
Re my #13 – Isn’t that contrary to the 5th Amendment? How do they think they are going to force people to submit their fingerprints? Forcing you to give evidence against yourself in advance of a crime that hasn’t even been committed yet?
Heirborn Ranger
17 JamesonLewis3rd // Jun 9, 2008 at 7:09 pm
Yeah, I heard about that fingerprint/mortgage thing a few days ago.
I’d love to know their rationale behind this scheme because it makes no sense whatsoever. None.
Unless, of course, if the sponsors and/or their friends and/or relatives own a fingerprint technology company or ink company (although fingerprinting has pretty much quit using ink) or database company or something like that. You just know it has to be profit-oriented.
New spending like this (for no reason) must stop.
We don’t even hear about half the garbage they waste our money on.
18 RedPepper // Jun 9, 2008 at 7:33 pm
Fred S. #16: Fred – Catch-22 says they can do anything that they can get away with …
JL3: Who ever said it had to make sense ?
19 JamesonLewis3rd // Jun 9, 2008 at 7:39 pm
RedPepper~~
It’s right there in the Constitution:
Thou shalt maketh senseth.
20 RedPepper // Jun 9, 2008 at 9:27 pm
JL3 #19: Uh, James. I hate to be the one to tell you, but the Warren Court declared that section fundamentally unfair, and therefore inoperable, decades ago …
/not to mention, all the international court opinions that would be in conflict with it …
21 gafisher // Jun 9, 2008 at 9:49 pm
Amen!</b re#5, Maggie! MREs would be great for keeping our Senators fit, trim and healthy. (Especially if that means Meals Republicans Eat.
They’d also be more in touch with the Troops they claim to support.
Maybe if the Senate restaurants served more NAFTAmatoes …
22 JamesonLewis3rd // Jun 9, 2008 at 10:22 pm
If they actually forced us all to eat in designated restaurants, you can bet it would be some putrid swill ladled into a 4-ounce plastic bowl; and this while those do-nothing thieves and their henchmen continue to dine like royalty in the 8-star mess hall attached to their workplace.
Have a Hyper-Happy Hyphen-Day!
23 Fred Sinclair // Jun 9, 2008 at 11:11 pm
JL3rd #22 – Perhaps they are striving to make the “Soylent Green” of yesteryear into todays reality. The might even code name it the “Greening of America”.
From Wiki – “Soylent Green is a 1973 dystopian science fiction movie depicting a bleak future in which overpopulation, pollution, and the resulting severe damage to the environment have led to widespread unemployment and poverty. Real fruit, vegetables, and meat are rare, commodities are expensive, and much of the population survives on processed food rations, including “soylent green” wafers.”
dystopia |disˈtÅpÄ“É™|
noun
an imagined place or state in which everything is unpleasant or bad, typically a totalitarian or environmentally degraded one. The opposite of Utopia .
Heirborn Ranger
24 everthink // Jun 10, 2008 at 12:15 pm
Fred:
Re: “Soylent Greenâ€
Now, you’ve ruined the ending for me!
So, are you saying the people (as in “We the People”) revolted against a Utopia, like this “Repugnant” oligarchy?
Yes We Can!
ET
25 JamesonLewis3rd // Jun 10, 2008 at 1:43 pm
The “Utopia” of Thomas More’s 16th century novel was not a free society—the lifestyle was compulsory.
William Penn (among other elitist colonists) was a fan of the book.
The word “Utopia” translates to “no-place land.â€
“Like, Nowheresville, man…..”
26 everthink // Jun 10, 2008 at 2:02 pm
“no-place land”. Oh, I see now!
Every day, as foreclosures multiply because of “Republican Deregulation”, the former homeowners, just move on to Utopia.
Yes We Can!
ET
27 SansPretense » Democrats forced to privatize Senate restaurants // Jun 11, 2008 at 2:01 am
[...] tip to Scrappleface for this lovely story from the Washington post: Year after year, decade upon decade, the U.S. [...]
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