Senator Jim DeMint Calls Out Capitol Hill’s Unserious Political Fools

Yesterday, Tea Party favorite Senator Jim DeMint announced he has organized a bipartisan group of senators to introduce the “Pay for Printing Act.” The bill requires senators to pay for celebratory “simple resolutions” with money from their own budgets.

In announcing the introduction of the bill, DeMint’s office pointed out that each resolution page costs an estimated $1,200. The Daily Caller likewise posted an investigation in June revealing that the “318 simple resolutions passed since January 2011 cost taxpayers $381,600. Dozens of additional simple resolutions have been passed since then, and their total price tag in this Congress now amounts to more than $400,000.”

Saving $400,000 in a multi-trillion dollar budget may seem hardly worth the bother to many -- we disagree for two important reasons.

First, of course, is that even to the bloated federal government, every penny counts and the way deficits grow to their present $1.3 trillion is $400,000 or $100,000 or one dollar at a time.

However, the real value of Jim DeMint’s bill -- beyond the much needed “every penny counts” mentality that it would impose on the Senate -- is to call out the political fools who introduce these resolutions.

As The Daily Caller documented, “During the 112th Congress, the Senate has already passed over 350 simple resolutions, and introduced over a 100 more. They have mostly been symbolic, feel-good declarations including, ‘National Chess Day,’ ‘National Safe Digging Month,’ ‘Year of Water,’ ‘National Inventors Month,’ ‘Collector Car Appreciation Day,’ and ‘The Year of the Family Caregiver.’”

What intellectual lightweight currently holding down a leather chair in the Senate wouldn’t want to celebrate “Collector Car Appreciation Day” instead of figuring out how to get Americans back to work or stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons?

The sponsor of “Collector Car Appreciation Day,” Democratic Senator Jon Tester of Montana (pictured), probably got a nice picture of himself standing next to a Model T or driving around the Capitol parking lot in a Duesenberg to send to the newspapers back home. 

However, by sponsoring such foolishness, Tester revealed himself to lack the seriousness to hold the high office to which he was elected. Voters should take note of the political fools who waste their time and the taxpayers’ money on this nonsense and vote accordingly.