It took running up a trillion dollar deficit before Congress finally voted to stop funding
cialis as part of Medicare/Medicade. Duh.
But with the same huge deficit hole Congress is still giving itself a pay raise:
"the raise from
$162,100 to $165,200 appears certain, because the House has voted to accept it; it takes actions by both chambers to block congressional pay raises. A yes vote was to block a congressional pay raise."
Give the Senate credit for voting it down. The House, supposedly run by conservatives still continues to spend money like mad and continues to give itself pay raises when it has lost control of the budget and spending.
We need to put Congress on the same social security plan as the rest of us (instead of their elaborate six figure pension plans). Their inflated pensions and pay raises that cannot be justified when they are cutting spending for kids, freezing benefits for military vets, etc. at the same time. That isn't right.
Cutting payments for something optional like Viagra was a rare moment of sanity coming from Congress. Now let's take an axe to the $24 billion in pork in the last highway bill (with the bridge to no where) and cut the rest of the fat on our bloated budget--like an unnecessary pay raise for the Congress that created the budget mess in the first place.