Have you heard about the federal workers who are refusing to do their jobs — while continuing to bill the taxpayers almost $1.5 million a year each?

That would be the 50-plus lazy United States senators who are refusing to fulfill their employment contracts and hold hearings on a new Supreme Court justice. They will continue to collect salaries averaging $174,000 a year — as well as coverage of total expenses of nearly $1.3 million a year each — despite nonperformance of their contracts.

You and I should try that in our own places of work. Good luck with that.

President Barack Obama on Wednesday nominated Merrick Garland, chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, for the Supreme Court. Senators, all from the Republican party, claim their refusal to hold hearings is a matter of principle.

But if any of them have refused to take their pay or expenses “on principle” while going on strike, it must have escaped our notice.

GOP senators say 'no' to SCOTUS hearings for Garland

There is no contractual ambiguity about this issue. The United States Constitution says the president “shall nominate” Supreme Court nominees, and senators shall provide “advice and consent.” It’s just like the contract you and I signed at our jobs. There are no mays, mights, cans, coulds, maybes, or if-they-feel-like-its anywhere in the language.

Mitch McConnell, Senate majority leader, and Orrin Hatch, president pro tempore, each get paid $193,000 a year. If you want to get paid, you do what you have contracted to do.

The Constitution also says the president “shall hold his office during the term of four years,” which expires at “noon on the 20th day of January” next year. If Obama’s term has already ended, as some in the Senate seem to think, then logically many of their terms have ended too — which brings us, yet again, to the subject of why they continue to be paid.

Congress is only in session for about 160 days a year anyway. Senators’ pay works out at around $1,100 per day. Some work harder than others. And senators’ pay is only a fraction of their total lifetime compensation. They get a lot of perks and freebies. They get a lot of expenses covered. They have pretty good job security: Terms last six years and most incumbents are re-elected.

And should they lose their jobs, or retire, there are incredibly generous retirement terms. No, not the pension: the lobbying, schmoozing, and masthead positions available for those who’ve played the game while in office.

You could call the current down-tools as an industrial action over working conditions. The senators are outraged and offended that they have to work with a president who is a ... Democrat.

Yeah, and it might just be about the president’s skin color too. About half of Republican senators were elected by the white voters in former slave states, and most of the rest represent overwhelmingly white states in the West.

The United States Senate must be the only place left in America where racists are allowed to refuse to do their jobs in protest at having to work with a black guy — and continue to draw full pay.

We are living in an era that is beyond parody. Consider how these Republican senators are acting:

• These lazy public sector workers who are refusing to do their jobs come from a party that is always criticizing lazy public sector workers for not doing their jobs.

• These workers who have just launched a bogus industrial action represent a party that is always criticizing workers who launch bogus industrial actions.

• These elected officials who are disrespecting the U.S. Constitution lead a party that is always going on about respect for the Constitution.

• These people insulting the taxpayers represent a party that keeps insisting it represents taxpayers.

These senators keep insisting, in the face of all the evidence, that President Obama is an outrageously divisive and partisan demagogue.

They’re lucky that’s such claptrap. The Constitution says that senators are “paid out of the Treasury of the United States.” A ruthless and divisive president might instruct his Treasury Secretary to withhold their biweekly checks. (Wouldn’t that be a riot?)

Meanwhile, the rest of us have to wonder why we still must pay our taxes on April 15. No taxation without representation, right?