Congress never swerves from path of overspending

Reading Ed Dolan's smackdown (Thursday letter) of Sen. Chuck Grassley's and Sen. Tom Harkin's profligate spending, I was reminded of then-Sen. John Danforth's comments made to The Arizona Republic in 1992:

“I have never seen more senators express discontent with their jobs. ... I think the major cause is that, deep down in our hearts, we have been accomplices to doing something terrible and unforgivable to this wonderful country. Deep down in our hearts, we know that we have bankrupted America and that we have given our children a legacy of bankruptcy. ... We have defrauded our country to get ourselves elected.”

Yet every Congress is the same. Each man swears an oath to this country and, instead, becomes the enemy within. I suppose it's the sort of men Washington attracts.

Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain, expressed it like this:

“There is no distinctly native American criminal class save Congress.”

I'm thankful, though, our Iowa delegation is above average (read tongue-in-cheek). As The Gazette noted (Dec. 28), “The average House Democrat voted with the majority of other Democrats 91.9 percent of the time ... The average House Republican votes with his party 88.3 percent … .” Our Democrat crew of Leonard Boswell, Bruce Braley and Dave Loebsack average over 98 percent! Steve King (92.5) and Tom Latham (91.4) are less reliable sheeple but still overachievers.

Iowa could be money ahead to fire Boswell, Braley and Loebsack and just phone in three Democrat votes.

Timothy Wentz

Marion