According to Bob Higgins, Congress makes four times as much as your family – if you are “median.” I’m well above median and my family still only earns about 2/3 of what a Congressmember earns; that’s before taxes and other federal income collection schemes.
The median family income in this country has been in decline for years and now hovers somewhere around $40,000 for a family… a family. Our Congress just raised it’s pay to $168,500 or over four times what his average constituents family currently lives on. This is without accounting for the fact that they have the best health care and retirement systems that the public can provide them, innumerable perks and goodies and the aforementioned proceeds from whatever illegal scams they can cook up with their corporate cronies.
While I would probably disagree with most if not all of Mr. Higgins proposed solutions to the problem, he and I can agree that Congress didn’t deserve a pay raise. As a matter of fact, I don’t know why the American people tolerate Congress giving itself automatic pay raises. Congress should have a mandate from the people who employ them before receiving any pay increase. Every pay raise should be subject to a public vote.
Being able to vote for your own pay raise is silly. Setting an automatic pay increase for “cost of living” is silly. The rest of us don’t get those benefits. If Congress really represents the people they shouldn’t either. The secret is that Congress represents Congress first and the people second, if at all.
Only one man called for an up or down vote on the automatic pay raise.
Despite Rep. Jim Matheson’s annual argument to have a vote on whether Congress should get a 2 percent pay raise, House members sided with the automatic hike during a debate over a spending bill for several departments. It’s the sixth time Matheson, Utah’s only Democratic House member, has tried to get a vote on the pay raise and the sixth time he’s lost.
“We continue to swim in a pool of red ink,” Matheson said on the House floor Tuesday. “I don’t think it’s appropriate to have this . . . raise go through without an up or down vote.”
Sickening. These sanctimonious men and women have an even lower approval rating than the President. Throw the bums out and start over with people who are held accountable. The corruption in Washington, D.C. is endemic. We’ll never clear it out without some sort of quiet grass roots revolution. Sadly, I think most Americans are far too comfortable and engrossed in the banality of their own lives to want to take action. In that respect, Congress is doing a fine job. As long as they can ensure plasma screens and Whoppers for everyone, nothing significant is likely to change.
Don’t get me wrong, there are some honorable men and women serving us in the Senate and the House. On the whole though, I’m disappointed by the men and women who are supposed to represent the people of the United States of America.