The Daily Background
| Congress Salary Raises, Again
by Arlen Parsa
Not that it’ll really make a difference to him (with a net worth between 30 and 100 million dollars), but good old Dick will be getting an extra four thousand dollars per year, starting this January. He’ll be getting 212,100 dollars a year, instead of a paltry $208,100. This is part of a uniform 1.9 percent increase Bush signed today- attributed to the increased “cost of living” for Senators, House Reps and a handful of other officials.
Well that’s cute. Real cute.
Congressmen get a raise in their salaries due to an increased cost of living. They get one every year. That’s real considerate of them. Maybe they could also perhaps raise the federal minimum wage up from $5.15 each year too, due to their precious cost of living increases.
No, seriously. Is that really going mean the difference between barely making it next year, and acheiving the American Dream? Why does an increase in cost of living only apply to mostly already rich Senators, Congressmen, and Federal Judges- and not the rest of us? What gives, guys? You yourselves get to approve a raise in your own salaries. Is that fair? Another 1.6 million (in total) dollars extra to pay yourselves this year?
I wish the congress had as much integrity as Association of American Physicians & Surgeons. In addition, I dug up an old but not outdated column written by Nader called “Congressional Pay Raise Scam: Stealth Attack,” which you can read here.
It sad and disturbing to see that too many members of Congress worry more about themselves than the people they are supposed to represent. They can start by raising the minimum wage and start working on other issues like health care, the deficit, finding ways to reduce and eliminate our independence on foreign oil. It will have to be collective effort of congress to resolve these issues.