Knowing that the public is frustrated with much of what Washington politicians do or don’t do, members of the House of Representatives in January passed a bill they called “No budget, no pay.”

The intent was to show that Congress was serious about doing it’s most basic job — passing a federal budget.

The Republican-controlled House has done its job, passing a budget blueprint every year, but the Senate has failed to propose or pass a budget for the past three years.

It’s understood that the House passed “no budget, no pay” to put pressure on the Senate, where majority Democratic leaders have avoided proposing a budget to protect some members taking tough spending votes — whcih would mean either cutting spending or supporting more deficit spending.

The House GOP measure was generally praised as being well-intentioned, even noble. But a closer look at “no budget, no pay” suggests it’s more about public relations than forcing Congress to do its job.

The first evidence of public relations is found in the fact that failure to pass a budget on time results in lawmakers’ paychecks going into an escrow account. Lawmakers would not lose any pay for failure to pass a budget; their paychecks would just be delayed awhile.

The second point worth remembering when it comes to “no budget, no pay” is that most members of the Senate are millionaires, as are many members of the House. Very few members of Congress live paycheck-to-paycheck, although there are a few who are not millionaires. Only a handful of members of Congress would suffer any inconvenience if a paycheck or two were held for a few weeks.

The lead sponsor of the bill in the House, Republican Dave Camp of Michigan, has a net worth between $3.8 million and $9.7 million based on his most recent financial disclosure filing. The co-sponsor of the bill in the Senate, Democrat Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, has a net worth of between $3.6 million and $11.7 million.

House Republicans have a right to be frustrated by the Democrat-controlled Senate opting to not pass a budget for the past three years. That failure by the Senate to do its job is clearly tied to political expediency or even political cowardice. But the “no budget, no pay” law is more about public relations than actually changing how things work in Congress.