I don't dispute that congress is a bunch of crooks.

I dispute the term "everyone else" - most people who criticize teachers for being overpaid and underworked (which is uncommon) also criticize pork barrel spending.

Well, first off, people who criticize teachers for being overpaid and underworked are just plain wrong. Teachers have a really hard job and it's one of the top 5 most important jobs in our whole society.

Regarding my original point, that nobody stands up for teachers.. I mean look at that stimulus bill. Teacher pay makes up a huge portion and often an outright majority of local budgets. When local budgets are crunched, and it's either lay off teachers or raise taxes, guess which way the local populace usually goes?

Everyone wants something for nothing.

Teachers are certainly underworked relative to other professionals, even for the 9-10 months that school is in session.

http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2008/03/art4full.pdf

They are also overpaid, particularly if you account for the value of all their fringe benefits, including summer vacation, tenure, defined benefit pensions, early retirement and gold-plated medical care (all of which are very expensive). In fact, they are usually paid right on the money if you look at salary alone - a 45 year old teacher with 20 years experience in NYC gets $83-95k/year (equivalent to $99-114k/year if they worked all year). That's not bad even for NYC.

http://schools.nyc.gov/Offices/DHR/TeacherPrincipalSchoolPro...

It gets even worse when you realize teachers tend to be low human capital individuals, at least compared to other college grads. Most likely they would be below average if they pursued other professions: http://www.ets.org/Media/Tests/GRE/pdf/gre_0809_interpreting...

Your link doesn't say what you claim it does. In fact, it goes on about how much extra work teachers do at home and on sundays.

You're proving my point: everyone wants something for nothing, and nobody stands up for teachers.

Look at table 5. Over the entire week, teachers work about 2.5 hours less than other professionals, for the 9-10 months/year that they work at all.

"Everyone wants something for nothing."

Is this surprising to you?

Look at many of the discussions about piracy. Many people feel it is their "right" to download and use software that would otherwise cost them money. It doesn't surprise me that people would have this same mindset for other things in their lives.

It's not surprising. It's just disgusting when they try to justify themselves by ripping teachers and other public servants who they rely on all day, every day.

Your second comment illustrates the straw man aspects of your first comment. There is very little military funding in municipal budgets.

If you willfully misinterpret people, you can tell yourself you won every argument.

But in the long run, it's going to make you stupid.