Here's the question I think everyone should ask about their congressperson: Did any of them do sufficient work this year to earn their $165,000? I'm not even going to add all the money all of them have raised to keep this $165,000 a year job. At least a million for most, even more for many of them.

I'll stay in the realm of reality. Because, even though most people don't make $165,000 a year, they can at least relate to the number (the house you're paying off might be worth more than this). The House of Representatives was in session for about three months this year. The rest of the time, well, there was campaigning, vacations, press junkets, trips to Hawaii, photo-ops in Louisiana and everything else under the sun except actually doing the work Congress is supposed to do (which is, pretty much, crafting laws and putting together appropriation bills about how to spend the money we're borrowing from the rest of the world).

I didn't work much this year. I was let go from my job on January 13th (a Friday). I was paid for a month plus another two weeks of vacation I hadn't used. Then I received six months of unemployment (at about 33% of my previous salary). Add all of this up, and I was paid for 3 1/2 months of work at my salary for two weeks of actual work. I think, possibly, I did more for my former company's bottom line in those two weeks than Congress has done for the country in their three months of work this year.

Now, I didn't get kicked out of my job because I didn't do the work. Or didn't come into work. Or took excessive vacations. It was really a personal thing more than a work-related thing. But, if you put up these numbers about any of the people in the House, I'd say they all failed at their jobs and should be fired. I'd think I should be fired if I did nothing, but still got $165,000 plus benefits (that many Americans couldn't even conceive of getting), plus travel expenses, plus extravagant fund raisers (making multiples of my yearly salary in a night) and other perks that come, apparently, with this job. The job none of them seem to be actually doing.

So here's my pitch for sticking the fork in the lot of them: they have not done their job. None of them. All of them should be thrown out with the bath water. And then scrub that tub with the most stringent cleanser you can get.

On Saturday in the Albuquerque Tribune, one of the conservative columnists could only come up with one reason to vote for the Republican incumbent in my district: to keep the House in Republican hands. The other conservative columnist has decided to take a vacation in the middle of this very contentious election. The Trib threw its weight behind the Democratic challenger. Of course, the Trib is the afternoon paper in Albuquerque and its circulation is dwarfed by the Journal (morning and Sunday), so going for the underdog is pretty much their responsibility.

I'm not even going to mention Iraq, corruption, out of control spending, pork, bridges to nowhere, Iran, stay the course, North Korea, cut and run, Pakistan, high school aged pages, Afghanistan, health care and prescription drug prices, Osama bin Laden, gas prices or the price of diplomacy in China.

Nope, none of that. I'm going to keep this simple.

I'm going to put it to you like this: would you get fired from your job (no matter how much you make, but, pretend, just for this exercise, you make $165K) if you only went into work for three months this year? If you got paid all year, but couldn't even start a list of things you accomplished?

I had to have a review every year to get my (most times quite small) raise at my last job. For a couple of years, I used a form (and, just a tip, never use the form). Then I just wrote everything out in a letter. My last review was about a year ago, three months or so before I left. I knew I was leaving--I didn't know how it was going to go down, but I knew I was out in a few months. My first thought was to write this next sentence down for my review, since my raise had been preordained since the beginning of the year (pretty much like everyone else's in the company):

"I think I've done a pretty good job in the last year."

This was true. And the last year I worked at the company was the hardest for many reasons, including the fact that I was so busy, I only took one vacation the whole year (and it was only for four days). I'll also point out this: I had over a month of sick days unused and unpaid for when I left.

But I don't think if any congressperson did any real soul searching, they could make that statement with a straight face.

The good thing about their review is this: it's up to us. Look at your congressperson and decide if they are worth what they were paid for their work this year. That's what you're voting about. Their jobs.

And all of us (the citizens of the U.S.) are their employers.

Matt Worley left out the 33 or so Senators (who make more and worked about the same amount, give or take) who are trying to keep their jobs. You can use the same formula for them, too.