onetime2

Alright, the idea here is to keep this thread from being yet another conservative/liberal/other party line shouting match.

Given the popularity of performance appraisals for employees throughout many corporations I thought this might be an interesting topic in light of the fact that Congress has voted themselves a pay raise for the fifth consecutive year. I'm not criticizing this fact, just laying out the context for my question.

Are there measurable criteria that our nation's politicians should be held accountable for when they are up for "review" so to speak? I recognize that they get a "performance review" each election, but that has little to do with pay raises.

I'm sure there will be some thoughts towards economic indicators and the like but, and this is just my opinion, I'm thinking along the lines of performance that they have a direct impact on.

Things like pieces of legislation considered, record of showing up for votes, perhaps some measures of how they're representing their own state's interests?

Here are a couple of areas that I think should be measured (the specific tools to measure these results not withstanding):

Effect on balancing the budget

Ensuring that our military is properly equipped, trained, staffed

Measure of how "reachable" a representative is by the people they should be representing

Number of times they do not vote compared with times they do (abstentions not counting against them, of course)

Anyone else care to offer some scorecard measures?