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Yeah you heard right, a raise. While the economy melts around us, Congress, in all its wisdom decided to vote to give itself a raise. Additionally, it is now law that Congress get an automatic cost of living raise in exchange, they had to give up receiving money for giving speeches. I had to laugh because I suspect that no one was begging them to give speeches, so might as well just vote to get an auto-raise.
Yeah, it is a meager 2.5% raise to 169,300 but man the bennies are to die for and they last a life time!
With the minimum wage increase accomplished last year, House Democratic leaders joined with their Republican counterparts to oppose a procedural vote to bring the COLA issue to the floor, leaving the way clear for their automatic raise.
Reluctance to openly discuss the salary issue comes at a time when Congress has been suffering low public approval ratings. In a December AP-Ipsos poll, 25% of those surveyed approved of the job Congress was doing.
Anyone see an interesting trend to this almost geometric progression?
However, Congressional pay structure is a bit different
Quote:
Congress is required by Article I, Section 6, of the Constitution to determine its
own pay. Prior to 1969, Congress did so by enacting stand-alone legislation. From
1789 through 1968, Congress raised its pay 22 times using this procedure.
Congressional salaries initially were $1,500. By 1968, they had risen to $30,000.
Stand-alone legislation may still be used to raise Member pay, as it was most recently
in 1982, 1983, 1989, and 1991, but two other methods— includingan automatic annual
adjustment procedure and a commission process — are now also available.
Under the annual adjustment procedure, Members are scheduled to receive a 2.8%
adjustment in January 2009. Members originally were scheduled to receive a 2.7%
increase in January 2008. The increase was revised to 2.5%, resulting in a salary in
2008 of $169,300, to match the percent increase in the base pay of General Schedule
(GS)employees. Bylaw, Members maynotreceive an increase greater than the increase
in the base pay of GS employees. Congress voted to deny the scheduled January 2007
adjustment. Members previously received a pay increase (1.9%) in January 2006,
increasing their salary to the rate of $165,200
As long as the Government is proposing to print more money anyway, they should just start giving it out to every citizen. Nothing will be accomplished in a real sense, because it won't be worth anything. But everyone will feel better. (Just give us a few worthless dollars more than Congress gave itself!)
As long as the Government is proposing to print more money anyway, they should just start giving it out to every citizen. Nothing will be accomplished in a real sense, because it won't be worth anything. But everyone will feel better. (Just give us a few worthless dollars more than Congress gave itself!)
A loaf of bread in my local market cost as much as an hours wage 30 years ago. 30 years from now at the current rate of increase, it will take a wheelbarrow full of dollars and 50 years we may end up like Zimbabwe and just adding an extra zero to our dollar each week.
Quote:
Originally Posted by HavetoSay
The American people ought to vote each year on whether or not the U.S. Congress deserves a raise.
Um... you do realize that both houses of congress are overwhelmingly DEMOCRAT, right?
You do realize that every single year the GOP controlled Congress under Bush's 8 years in office they received a raise every year....right???
[The wingnuts sure do seem to care about spending when Dems are in charge but don't raise a peep when Bush and his rubberstampers created the biggest deficits in US history]
9
95% of Politician are liars, crooks, cheats or just a immortal human being. The 5% that manage to hold on to their values never get the voice to bring about change.
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