We hope Santa’s been hitting the gym lately.
On Friday, the Greater Washington Board of Trade sent off about 178 pounds of coal broken up into 535 pieces — one for each member of Congress. Each piece was shipped through the U.S. Postal Service along with a note letting every elected official what the business organization thought about how they performed their job this year. You know, in case the lump of coal wasn’t obvious.
Jim Dinegar, CEO of the business organization, joked to The Washington Examiner on Friday that he bet his employees would never have thought they’d spend their day packing coal at their job.
“I think you’ll get a few [senators and representatives] that dismiss it,” he said. “But on a serious note … we certainly understand the partisan back and forth. But there are unintended consequences in that Greater Washignton almost becomes collateral damage [when Congress stalls on budget decisions]. It hurts here first and it hurts here worst.”
Dinegar said the only person in Congress who didn’t get a lump of coal was Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who has been in recovery this year after being shot in the head in January.
