I’m always excited to hear that someone has received an award. As a devoted baseball fan, I follow with particular interest the Cy Young and Gold Glove awards in Major League Baseball. As a parent, I take great pleasure in seeing the ribbons and awards my daughter receives at school and at play.
So it was with initial excitement that I noticed in Congressman Sensenbrenner’s recent newsletter that he had received an award, an “A rating” from the National Taxpayer’s Union. Truth be told, my initial excitement was probably a little overblown. It quickly dawned on me that he has basically won an award for doing absolutely nothing. Exactly that … nothing.
It appears that if you make a career out of not bringing any of our hard-earned tax dollars back to the district, you can win an award for it. That seems a little backwards, frankly. Using this kind of rationale, I should have won at least five or six different trophies for not doing what I was supposed to be doing last year. Count among them the “Didn’t clean out the garage” plaque and the ever popular “Forgot to put away the milk” trophy.
Congressman Sensenbrenner is probably happy with his award. He shouldn’t be. He was recently “awarded” a grade of “F” by themiddleclass.org, a site that lists how our elected officials voted on issues designed to assist the middle class. I firmly believe that the middle class in our district would much rather see him work hard to meet their needs, rather than chase after meaningless awards.
As the representative for Wisconsin’s 5th Congressional District, I’ll shoot for a different kind of award, one that will recognize my success in bringing our tax dollars back home and using them to create job opportunities and shore up struggling businesses.
Hard work towards meeting the needs of my district will be its own reward.