SENATE RESTAURANT SERVICES

SENATE RESTAURANT SERVICES, June 9, 2008
A recent Washington Post story mentioned that the Senate dining Room will soon be handed over to a private contractor. According to the report, since 1993 the Senate dining rooms have lost over $18 million with an expected loss of $2 million this year alone. Things are so bad that unless a $250,000 subsidy is made, they will not make payroll next month. “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.”

Doesn’t this statement seem to go against the typical Democratic notion about standing up for the worker and railing against “big business”? If the Senate can not manage its own dining services, what makes you think that they can manage the country?
Senator Diane Feinstein mentioned that the reason for the losses, “noticeably subpar" food and service. Lousy food and service is a pretty good way for any restaurant to encounter problems. One of the basic steps a restaurant must take inn order to ensure its survival is to have a good product and make sure that the diner has an enjoyable time. Obviously, the Senate run restaurants either have not learned this basic lesson or refuse to adhere to it. Senator Feinstein stated that without privatizing the restaurants, prices would rise by 25%. Either way, it seems like this is a great idea that should save the American taxpayer much needed funds.

You would expect that an operation that has posted a profit only seven times in the past 44 years would be a cause of concern for our elected officials. You would think that the Senate would act more like the House, which privatized its restaurant services in the 1980s. With the privatization, the House has seen a dramatic increase in traffic and has in fact provided money back to the House as part of its relationship, $1.2 million since 2003. A government entity that actually makes money instead of wasting our money? This is exactly the type of government management that we need. When the American public has to deal with the prospects of $4 gas, I think it is about time that the Senate stops this wasteful spending of our tax dollars.

However, Senator Feinstein’s decision to contract out the operations of the Senate dining rooms has brought concern from some of her colleagues. Both Senators Sherrod Brown (OH) and Robert Menendez (NJ) expressed dismay at having to privatize these operations.

Senator Menendez 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." Well what’s it going to be? Are the Democrats going to continue to “stand up for the little guy” or is it going to start acting responsibly and stop wasting the tax payer’s money? One would think that this is a pretty simple question, but with all the pontificating that the Senate Democrats do, some might now be caught between a rock and a hard place. I am interested to see how the main stream media plays this story. I am impressed that the Washington Post actually covered the story. I am sure that the Senate leadership thought that be having a late night voice vote might eliminate most of the coverage of the change, all tax payers should be thankful that the Washington Post provided us with a brief look inside some of the problems the Democrats might be having when instead of speaking, they have to lead. Now that the Democrats are responsible for the operations of the Senate, will they appease their labor union financial backers or will the operate the Senate in a way that is responsible and limits the amount of wasteful spending? It should be interesting to see what impact the smart decision that Senator Feinstein made has on the labor bosses and on the percdeption that Democrats stand up for the little guy while the bad Republicans stand with the big corporations.