Do We Need a National Pretzel Day?

June 14 -- You may be celebrating Father's Day this Sunday. But do you celebrate — or have you even heard of — National Night Out? Who do you send a card to on Alternative Fuels Vehicle Day? How do you celebrate Court Reporting and Capturing Day?

These are just a few of the "commemorative" days that our Congress is spending time — and money — on. There's also National Tartan Day, National Motivation and Inspiration Day, even National Pretzel Day.

Coming up with all these commemorative days was costing taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars in printing costs, and wasting a third of the floor time in the House. (Although you might argue that's good, because it keeps them from doing worse things.)

So seven years ago, the House changed its rules to ban new ones.

Did that stop the waste? Of course not! Now lawmakers just suspend the rules and do it anyway.

Congressman Danny Davis, D, Ill., explains how they do it. "You kind of tweak the language in such … such a way that you're not really commemorating but you're acknowledging," he said.

A Rose Is a Rose …

And Davis sits on the committee that was supposed to stop the waste. Yet that very committee asked him to go on the House floor to promote 2002 as the Year of the Rose.

The justification? "Well, roses … I mean, are very important," Davis said. He even waxed poetic about it — on the floor.

"Roses are red, violets are blue, sugar is sweet and so are you," he said in a session."Isn't that wasting everybody's time?" I asked him.

"Not really," he replied. "Just think of the people who like poetry. I mean, can you imagine how one might feel if they felt that was coming directly to them?"

"So buy a card," I said. "Don't talk about it on the floor of Congress. You're spending my money on this stuff!"

Davis said, "Well, you could buy your own roses, but then you'd have to talk about them to yourself. I mean, it's not the same."

But Davis and others are taking up space in the Congressional Record with page after page of these commemorations — or acknowledgements. And that costs money. But Davis thinks that's good.

He said if Congress didn't order up all this printing work, then people in the paper industry would be "crying about lack of opportunity."

"So maybe Congress should pay people to dig holes and fill them up," I suggested.

Davis laughed. "Well, we do."

"We do?"

"Of course," he said. "We dig a lot of holes."