George Bush vs. the average American:

George Bush: (a partial list)

From CommonDreams.org (Aug 2001):

IN DEFENDING his massive time away from the White House, President Bush said, ''I love to go walking out there, seeing the cows - occasionally they talk to me, being the good listener that I am. It's important for all of us in Washington to stay in touch with the values of the heartland.''

The Washington Post recently calculated that Bush has spent 42 percent of his first eight months as president at vacation spots. By the end of this week, only eight months into his presidency, he will have logged about 50 days alone at his range in Crawford, Texas.

From the Chicago Tribune (Aug 2002):

Say what you will about our president, he knows the value of a good vacation. Right now, he's probably easing back in an overstuffed armchair at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, and wondering if he can fit in a nap before tee time.

Some would criticize Mr. Bush's 25-day break, but he is, in fact, a good role model for the rest of us.

From USA Today (Feb 2003):

The "soujourner in chief" heads back to the White House next week, nearly a month after departing for what his spinmeisters are quick to emphasize has been a "working vacation."

From the Washington Post (Aug 2003):

[The press conference] was called on 90 minutes' notice as Bush prepared to leave Saturday for a month-long vacation at his ranch in Crawford, Tex., and half a dozen fundraisers for his reelection effort.

The average American:

From the Washington Post (Jul 2003)

• ... Americans manage to live with the stingiest vacation allotment in the industrialized world -- 8.1 days after a year on the job, 10.2 days after three years, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
  
  
• A survey by the Internet travel company Expedia.com has found that Americans will be taking 10 percent less vacation time this year than last -- too much work to get away, said respondents. This continues a trend that has seen the average American vacation trip buzzsawed down to a long weekend, according to the travel industry. Some 13 percent of American companies now provide no paid leave, up from 5 percent five years ago, according to the Alexandria-based Society for Human Resource Management. In Washington state, a whopping 17 percent of workers get no paid leave.
  
  We're now logging more hours on the job than we have since the 1920s. Almost 40 percent of us work more than 50 hours a week. And just a couple of weeks ago, before members of the House of Representatives took off on their month-plus vacations, they opted to pile more work onto American employees by approving the White House's rewrite of wage and hour regulations, which would turn anyone who holds a "position of responsibility" into a salaried employee who can be required to work unlimited overtime for no extra pay.
  
  
• In 1932, both the Democratic and Republican platforms called for shorter working hours, which averaged 49 a week in the 1920s. The Department of Labor issued a report in 1936 that found the lack of a national law on vacations shameful when 30 other nations had one, and recommended legislation. But it never happened. This was the fork in the road where the United States and Europe, which then had a similar amount of vacation time, parted ways. Europe chose the route of legal, protected vacations, while we went the other -- no statutory protection and voluntary paid leave. Now we are the only industrialized nation with no minimum paid-leave law. Europeans get four or five weeks by law and can get another couple of weeks by agreement with employers. The Japanese have two legally mandated weeks, and even the Chinese get three.

posted by Quiddity at 8/07/2003 12:07:00 AM