The Rich Also Cry: Why Congress Is the Most Miserable Job in Washington

 

Congress looks powerful, but it’s a burnout machine—longer hours, shrinking pay, rising threats, vanishing power. The marble glows; the members crumble. Even here, the rich also cry.

Let me kill the fantasy right now. Being a member of Congress is not glamorous. It is not powerful. It is not a velvet-rope club of smooth operators shaping history. It is a grinding, joyless, underpaid, overexposed mess. The cameras shine, but the people inside look worn down.

Don Bacon said it without perfume. He felt “ground down.” Tired of elections every 2 years. Tired of raising $6 million to $7 million every cycle. Tired of 12- to 14-hour days. He is not alone. Sixty lawmakers have already said they are stepping down after the midterms. That is a record this early in an election year. When that many insiders head for the door, it is not coincidence. It is collapse fatigue.

The weekly routine sounds like punishment. A red-eye flight into Washington. You land barely awake and rush into a vote on a bill you have not fully read. Party leaders whip you hard. Fall in line. Do not freelance. Push the button and smile for the cameras. That is not independent judgment. That is factory work. Then comes the degrading part. Fifteen to 25 hours a week in a drab office, dialing donors for cash. A minder sits beside you as you beg. You need millions just to keep your seat. Democracy now runs on call sheets and credit cards. If you cannot fundraise, you cannot legislate. The job title says “Representative.” The job description says “Fundraiser-in-Chief.”

By Thursday night, you are sprinting to the airport. The weekend is not rest. It is parades, town halls, ribbon cuttings, and listening to angry constituents unload. Sunday night you fly back. Repeat. It is a treadmill with no off switch.

You might argue they earn $174,000. That sounds rich. It has not changed in 17 years. Inflation has shredded roughly 33% of its real value. In today’s dollars, members earn about a third less than in 2009. Dozens sleep in their offices to save rent. Imagine that: lawmakers on cots under fluorescent lights in the shadow of the Capitol dome. The rich also cries.

Now look at output. From 2023 to 2025, Congress passed 274 laws. That is fewer than any Congress since the Civil War era. Many were trivial. Renaming post offices. Adjusting minor rules. Big structural reforms? Stuck. Gridlocked. According to Gallup, only 17% of Americans approve of Congress. Seventeen. If Congress were a business, shareholders would fire management.

And here is the darker twist. The job is not just tedious. It is dangerous. Last year the Capitol Police investigated 14,938 threats against members, their families, and staff. That is a 58% jump from 2024. On January 6, 2021, lawmakers hid under desks while rioters stormed the building. In 2022, the then Speaker’s husband was attacked with a hammer. This is not abstract anger. It is violence at the door.

So lawmakers work longer hours, earn less in real terms, pass fewer laws, face more threats, and command less power. That last point matters most. The job looks powerful from the outside. Inside, it feels hollow. Partisanship has eaten the institution alive. Data from DW-NOMINATE shows there is now zero ideological overlap between Republicans and Democrats. Zero. The parties are more distant than at any point in the past 80 years. If you cross the aisle, your own side may try to destroy you in a primary. Loyalty is mandatory. Independence is suicidal.

Julia Brownley, a Democrat from California who is stepping down, said it is the worst it has probably ever been. I believe her. When there is no middle ground, there is no bargaining. When there is no bargaining, there is no lawmaking.

Committees once mattered. Members built expertise, shaped bills, negotiated across party lines. Since the mid-1990s, power has been sucked upward into the offices of the Speaker and the Senate leader. Major priorities get crammed into giant omnibus bills negotiated behind closed doors. Rank-and-file lawmakers vote on thousands of pages they barely had time to scan. A retired member put it bluntly: committee power has been pulled away. If you cannot make your own decisions, what are you doing there?

Hearings have turned into stages. Lawmakers hunt viral moments. A sharp insult. A fiery question. A 30-second clip for social media. Governance has become performance art. C-SPAN meets influencer culture. It is less about solving problems and more about feeding the algorithm. Meanwhile, the machinery is rusting. The House has fewer committee staff than in the 1980s, even though government is larger and more complex. A typical office runs on three or four exhausted young aides. If they are talented, they leave for higher salaries in the private sector. LegiStorm data show near-record staff turnover last year. When expertise leaves, lobbyists step in. Michael Thorning of the Bipartisan Policy Center warned that Congress no longer has the expertise to do its job. That is not an exaggeration. It is a diagnosis.

Andrew Hall of Stanford University argues that this toxic climate scares off moderates. Who runs instead? People who thrive in conflict. Politics becomes blood sport. When calm voices exit and combatants remain, compromise dies. The chamber grows louder and dumber at the same time.

It was not always this bleak. After Watergate in the 1970s, Congress reformed itself. Lawmakers strengthened committees, expanded oversight, and tried to restore trust. They were miserable enough to change the system. Reform came from shared pain.

Could it happen again? In theory, yes. Committees could regain real authority. Campaign-finance reform could cut the 15 to 25 hours a week spent begging for cash. Salaries could be adjusted modestly to reflect 17 years of inflation. Staff capacity could be rebuilt so members rely less on lobbyists. None of that is radical. All of it requires bipartisan agreement.

And there lies the brick wall. Agreement today looks like betrayal. Each side treats the other as an existential threat. In that climate, reform is fantasy. The job remains a grindhouse.

Being a member of Congress is not sexy. It is the crummiest job in Washington. Longer hours. Lower real pay. More threats. Less power. A shiny title masking a shrinking role. From the outside, the Capitol dome glows. Inside, many lawmakers are asking the same question in private: was this ever worth it?

 

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