Some years ago Congress found a hundred million dollars that they’d misplaced.

Now, that seem like a fortune to you or I but to Congress, and we must be fair that this is about the only true bipartisan anything, it represented what they could proverbially piss off on a slow Sunday morning before breakfast. Almost like you or I going out for breakfast tacos money.

Yet despite that they were practically salavating over how to spend the windfall.

What we need is a bonus / fine rule for congressional pay: if they run a surplus (no accounting trick allowed) then they get a bonus BUT if they run a deficit outside of wartime then they are aggressively, progressively fined up to the value for all forms of congressional compensation, including imputed rent paid on their otherwise free offices or health care and charged against their future congressional retirement packages.