SansPretense

Hat tip to Scrappleface for this lovely story from the Washington post:

Year after year, decade upon decade, the U.S. Senate’s network of restaurants has lost staggering amounts of money — more than $18 million since 1993, according to one report, and an estimated $2 million this year alone, according to another.

The financial condition of the world’s most exclusive dining hall and its affiliated Capitol Hill restaurants, cafeterias and coffee shops has become so dire that, without a $250,000 subsidy from taxpayers, the Senate won’t make payroll next month.

The embarrassment of the Senate food service struggling like some neighborhood pizza joint has quietly sparked change previously unthinkable for Democrats. Last week, in a late-night voice vote, the Senate agreed to privatize the operation of its food service, a decision that would, for the first time, put it under the control of a contractor and all but guarantee lower wages and benefits for the outfit’s new hires.

The House is expected to agree — its food service operation has been in private hands since the 1980s — and President Bush’s signature on the bill would officially end a seven-month Democratic feud and more than four decades of taxpayer bailouts.

So the Democrats are effectively admitting that privatization would really increase the quality of the food and service at the Senate restaurants. Why was there no incentive for the workers to do this on their own without the need for privatization?:

In a letter to colleagues, Feinstein said that the Government Accountability Office found that “financially breaking even has not been the objective of the current management due to an expectation that the restaurants will operate at a deficit annually.”

So basically, because the management knew the government was going to bail them out so they could keep getting paid, they had no incentive to compete with the private company on the other side of the building.

Here we are …(more after the break)hearing from certain Democrats wanting to nationalize the oil industry and a whole lot of people wanting the government to take over health care, all there’s a perfect example of why nationalization is such a horrible idea right under the noses of Congress – especially since they choose not to eat at their own damn food establishment. Can we say hypocrites? I guess when you refuse to acknowledge the historical evidence against nationalization of industry and socialism, it’s not so hard to overlook the one right next door in the same building.

Of course, not all the Democrats agree with privatization:

But Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), speaking for the group of senators who opposed privatizing the restaurants, said that “you cannot stand on the Senate floor and condemn the privatization of workers, and then turn around and privatize the workers here in the Senate and leave them out on their own.”
…

“I know what happens with privatization. Workers lose jobs, and the next generation of workers make less in wages. These are some of the lowest-paid workers in our country, and I want to help them,” Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), a staunch labor union ally, said recently. The wages of the approximately 100 Senate food service workers average $37,000 annually.

Now just for good measure, let’s remind ourselves why they’re privatizing:

…
All told, they bring in more than $10 million a year in food sales but have turned a profit in just seven of their 44 years in business, according to the GAO.

In a masterful bit of understatement, Feinstein blamed “noticeably subpar” food and service. Foot traffic bears that out. Come lunchtime, many Senate staffers trudge across the Capitol and down into the basement cafeteria on the House side. On Wednesdays, the lines can be 30 or 40 people long.
…

Operation of the House cafeterias was privatized in the 1980s by a Democratic-controlled Congress. Restaurant Associates of New York, the current House contractor, would take over the Senate facilities this fall. The company wins high praise from most staffers and lawmakers, who say they are pleased with the wide variety of new items offered every few months.

Most important to Feinstein, Restaurant Associates turns a substantial profit — paying $1.2 million in commissions to the House since 2003. Company officials did not return telephone calls seeking comment.
…
By one estimate, Restaurant Associates would turn a large profit within three years and would begin paying about $800,000 annually in commissions to the Senate.

OK, so now kids, can someone tell me why this guy’s suggestion made 2 years ago is completely idiotic (no offense if he reads this):

…If oil were nationalized, it would be a government corporation for the people and by the people. This American corporation would work for the people rather than a select few billionaires in a boardroom somewhere. On top of that, any profits that the nationalized firm makes can go toward developing technologies for greater American independence, such as fuel cells, ethanol and oil shale.

It is safe to say that nationalized oil is the wave of the future. Why should the government settle for letting a wealthy corporation take billions in profits while it takes only a teeny fraction of that in royalties? Other nationalized oil firms, such as PEMEX in Mexico and PDVSA in Venezuela, pump any profits they have straight back to their governments, and hence, the profits go to their people. With America’s current system, instead of helping ourselves, we help a select few. I’m not against companies making a profit, but I can see no reason Exxon’s CEO, Lee Raymond, should receive a $400 million retirement package while we pay $3.00 for a gallon of gas. Wouldn’t it be nice to know that when you fill up at the gas pump, a little of that money that you spend, in some little way, goes right back into your pocket?
(Jesse Thomas, junior, mining and mineral engineering, April 25th, 2006)

First of all, I’d like for someone to explain to all those crazy Mexican immigrants, both legal and illegal, that if they’d just stay in their country they can reap the benefits of the wonderfull oil profits…which, of course, actually go to the corrupt politicians of Mexico, NOT the people. Not to mention, in the US, the state and federal governments actually make more money off of a gallon of gas than the oil companies. Do we see those tax dollars being filtered down to us in any coherent way to lower the price of fuel? Instead, any attempts by the oil companies to increase domestic supply via drilling or new refineries are met with BLOCKS by…THE GOVERNMENT and their special interests. In short, the environmentalists like high gas prices because they don’t give a damn about the people paying for them. They only care about saving a damn Moose in Alaska.

You want oil prices lowered? Let the US companies drill domestically and give them incentives to NOT export. De-regulate the industry, NOT nationalize it.

You want social security fixed and benefits increased? Follow the example of Congress with their food troubles and privatize it.

Do we really want these idiots running the oil industry? How about providing health care? They can’t even run a goverment restaurant…