I have always thought it would be nice to be a member of the U.S. House or the U.S. Senate. You get a nice salary ($165,200), and about a million dollars to run your offices. Your travel is paid for, so you really don’t need to worry about high gas prices. If you want to travel to some far-away country, you just schedule a “fact-finding” trip and that’s paid for, too. But the best part is the time off.

If I were a senator or a representative, I think I would at least attempt to try and solve the nation’s energy problem before I took 30+ days off for summer vacation.

The Democrat-controlled U.S. House wants their time off in August. On Wednesday, they voted to take a nice vacation until September 8, which is more time off than most of us get each year:

That when the House adjourns on the legislative day of Thursday, July 31, 2008, Friday, August 1, 2008, or Saturday, August 2, 2008, on a motion offered pursuant to this concurrent resolution by its Majority Leader or his designee, it stand adjourned until 2 p.m. on Monday, September 8, 2008…

The resolution passed by one vote. Every one of the 213 “Yea” votes for the vacation were cast by Democrats. The House Democrats don’t want to work on our nation’s energy problems.

Congratulations to Montana’s Congressman Denny Rehberg who wants to solve the nation’s energy problem. He voted to stay in Washington and find a solution. Sadly, 213 democrats voted for vacation.

Rehberg said in this statement:

“I was elected to do the work of the people of Montana, and they’re demanding action to fix high energy prices,” said Rehberg, a member of the powerful Appropriations Committee. “I requested during the debate in New Orleans that Congress postpone its month long recess until we’d passed meaningful energy legislation. My Democratic colleagues stated their intention to wait until a new President took office in January of 2009. They need to know what anyone who has bought a gallon of gas in the last two years already understands: The time for action is now.”

It would be nice to see our two Senators, Max Baucus and Jon Tester, get behind Rehberg and stay in Washington to work on our nation’s biggest problem. There’s not much of a chance of that happening – they have fundraisers to attend.