With economy in shambles, Congress gets a raise, all politicians suck ballz Options

[MARSMAN]

With economy in shambles, Congress gets a raise
By Jordy Yager
Posted: 12/17/08 05:41 PM [ET]
A crumbling economy, more than 2 million constituents who have lost their jobs this year, and congressional demands of CEOs to work for free did not convince lawmakers to freeze their own pay.

Instead, they will get a $4,700 pay increase, amounting to an additional $2.5 million that taxpayers will spend on congressional salaries, and watchdog groups are not happy about it.


“As lawmakers make a big show of forcing auto executives to accept just $1 a year in salary, they are quietly raiding the vault for their own personal gain,” said Daniel O’Connell, chairman of The Senior Citizens League (TSCL), a non-partisan group. “This money would be much better spent helping the millions of seniors who are living below the poverty line and struggling to keep their heat on this winter.”

However, at 2.8 percent, the automatic raise that lawmakers receive is only half as large as the 2009 cost of living adjustment of Social Security recipients.

Still, Steve Ellis, vice president of the budget watchdog Taxpayers for Common Sense, said Congress should have taken the rare step of freezing its pay, as lawmakers did in 2000.

“Look at the way the economy is and how most people aren’t counting on a holiday bonus or a pay raise — they’re just happy to have gainful employment,” said Ellis. “But you have the lawmakers who are set up and ready to get their next installment of a pay raise and go happily along their way.”

Member raises are often characterized as examples of wasteful spending, especially when many constituents and businesses in members’ districts are in financial despair.

Rep. Harry Mitchell, a first-term Democrat from Arizona, sponsored legislation earlier this year that would have prevented the automatic pay adjustments from kicking in for members next year. But the bill, which attracted 34 cosponsors, failed to make it out of committee.

“They don’t even go through the front door. They have it set up so that it’s wired so that you actually have to undo the pay raise rather than vote for a pay raise,” Ellis said.

Freezing congressional salaries is hardly a new idea on Capitol Hill.

Lawmakers have floated similar proposals in every year dating back to 1995, and long before that. Though the concept of forgoing a raise has attracted some support from more senior members, it is most popular with freshman lawmakers, who are often most vulnerable.

In 2006, after the Republican-led Senate rejected an increase to the minimum wage, Democrats, who had just come to power in the House with a slew of freshmen, vowed to block their own pay raise until the wage increase was passed. The minimum wage was eventually increased and lawmakers received their automatic pay hike.

In the beginning days of 1789, Congress was paid only $6 a day, which would be about $75 daily by modern standards. But by 1965 members were receiving $30,000 a year, which is the modern equivalent of about $195,000.

Currently the average lawmaker makes $169,300 a year, with leadership making slightly more. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) makes $217,400, while the minority and majority leaders in the House and Senate make $188,100.

Ellis said that while freezing the pay increase would be a step in the right direction, it would be better to have it set up so that members would have to take action, and vote, for a pay raise and deal with the consequences, rather than get one automatically.

“It is probably never going to be politically popular to raise Congress’s salary,” he said. “I don’t think you’re going to find taxpayers saying, ‘Yeah I think I should pay my congressman more’.”

[space invader]

These times are hard and yet the few do well
The rest can wallow in the dust
And if you're looking for the answers
You won't need a chrystal ball
'Cause they're not taking any chances on
Democracy, Democracy (not on you life)

[FrankD]

they spend MORE on their campaigns then they MAKE during their terms (above board anyhow)

i agree,,, this sends the wrong example....we need JIMMY STEWART to kick their asses!!!!

[whatthefuck]

Makes sense to me!

[Mike C]

they spend MORE on their campaigns then they MAKE during their terms (above board anyhow)

i agree,,, this sends the wrong example....we need JIMMY STEWART to kick their asses!!!!

That should be some kind of new law, you can raise money from whomever, but you can't spend more than the salary of the term in office? I know it will never work because of the outside money but I can dream.

How about a law that no former rep can lobby the govt. for 10 years after leaving office for any legislation? Make it a felony? And then see if they still want the job?

[whatthefuck]

That should be some kind of new law, you can raise money from whomever, but you can't spend more than the salary of the term in office? I know it will never work because of the outside money but I can dream.

How about a law that no former rep can lobby the govt. for 10 years after leaving office for any legislation? Make it a felony? And then see if they still want the job?

Yeah!









and YEAH!

[plcmat]

I know these guys probably have all kinds of outside income sources from speeches, honorariums, etc. - but the salary for a US senator is laughably low considering the importance and selectivity of the position.

We could probably attract better people from private industry to government service if the salaries were more commensurate with someone at an executive level.

[Mike C]

I know these guys probably have all kinds of outside income sources from speeches, honorariums, etc. - but the salary for a US senator is laughably low considering the importance and selectivity of the position.

We could probably attract better people from private industry to government service if the salaries were more commensurate with someone at an executive level.

Just what we need. I want the dudes at AIG, Goldman Sachs to run the govt. Oh wait they already do.

Who needs a salary when you get a $20 million tax break like Hank Paulson?

We need more of that!

I'll tell you what, let's give them all a million bucks a year but they have to forfeit the right to lobby or work for any business that lobbies the govt after? Make it a death penalty case if they don't?