Your Congress at work, now fighting over sports

WASHINGTON — It's not enough for lawmakers to bicker over war, taxes, immigration, global warming and the federal deficit.

Now they're fighting over measures that congratulate college sports teams for winning national titles or hail professional athletes for their achievements.

The once-routine resolutions honoring hometown squads or stars sailed through Congress for years with nary a discordant note or vote — but no more.

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"It's one thing to not be able to do the big things which are hard, like reforming Social Security ," Graham said. "But it's quite another to not be able to do the simple, appropriate and easy things like recognizing a team for winning a national championship."

A small but growing number of lawmakers say that successful athletes get plenty of accolades outside Washington — and that bills celebrating them waste precious time in Congress .

"We need to raise the bar and start doing serious work around here," Rep. Jason Chaffetz , a freshman Utah Republican, said last week during a contentious House of Representatives floor debate on two commemorative sports measures.

"I don't care if it's a Democrat, I don't care if it's a Republican (who sponsors such legislation), if it's in the world of sports, they get enough recognition," Chaffetz said. "We've got important business. We have troops that are in harm's way. We have not brought up a budget resolution to discuss the outrageous debt and deficit that we're suffering through."

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Zyphlin said:

Ugg....

Seriously, the amount of time spending debating whether or not they should acknowledge sports teams will be more than an entire decades worth of acknowledgement votes would actually be. How asinine

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