November 15, 2011, - 2:59 pm
Where Can You Get Job Benefits Like Gabby Giffords?
Hey, where can you get job benefits like Gabby Giffords? What other “employer,” aside from the U.S. Congress, would allow you to leave your job endlessly, while collecting full salary, writing a book, and doing major promotions of the book on network television? I’m sorry she was shot, but everyone in America, other than Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, would be struggling to pay medical bills and find some sort of way to make a living, were they in her situation. And that’s even under full-scale Obamacare, of which she was a big-time supporter.
I wrote about this when it was first announced that Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was writing a book with her husband. And now that the book is out, she’s been all over network television promoting it. Do you think your boss would let you stay home on sick leave while doing this? Do you think your boss or your employer would let you just sit at home and say, I’ll return “when I’m better,” as Giffords told ABC News, last night? Most Americans would, by now, be out of a job and puzzled as to how they’d survive. But not Members of Congress. They have it better, and it’s yet another example of how out of touch they are. For the rest of us, the Family Medical Leave Act time off would have run out by now. And so would the salary and benefits. We’d be struggling to make COBRA payments to keep our healthcare benefits alive. And if we were on TV promoting a book, our bosses would report us for healthcare fraud.
While it’s obvious that Giffords has trouble talking and forming sentences, she’s either a Member of Congress or she’s not. Yes, as many have argued with me, it’s great to have a liberal Democrat holding office and not voting (she came back to vote once). But I don’t think that way. I’m writing this out of a sense of fairness. I don’t think she’s a “hero,” as she’s being touted. She’s an unfortunate victim who is trying to recover from being shot in the head. And now she’s someone who is mooching poor schnooks in America for benefits and relaxation they would not get in her position. She’s getting book advances AND the over $200,000 benefits and salary package that Members of Congress get. It’s not right. And it’s a form of chutzpah. After I wrote the initial Giffords piece, I heard from many Americans with injured sons, husbands, and wives, who are down and out on their luck because they don’t have the Giffords Congressional benefits package.
I wish Giffords well and a complete recovery. But why should she get this generous, bottomless package of benefits and salary that the rest of America doesn’t get? It’s interesting how liberal Democrats aren’t exactly for the egalitarianism they profess, when they are the beneficiaries. Isn’t it?
Tags: ABC News, book, book promotions, COBRA, Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, Congresswoman Giffords, Family Medical Leave Act, FMLA, Gabby Giffords, Gabrielle Giffords, healthcare, healthcare benefits, job benefits, obamacare, when i'm better
Yup. If she’s on disability, she should resign to get better. Giffords shouldn’t collect a congressional salary for doing nothing. Her constituents deserve someone who puts them first. With all due respect, that person isn’t Gabby Giffords.
NormanF on November 15, 2011 at 3:09 pm