Talk to the Dem's They have been in charge for two years already. When are you going to get off blaming everything but the crucifixion on Bush? Or is that his fault too?
Put this one squarely on the Back of Wrangle and Dodd.
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), anon-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"."
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John Adams The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence.
Ronald Reagan: 'Everybody that is for abortion has already been born'
"I never said I was worth it. I only said I wouldn't do it for less " William F. Buckley Jr.
Thanks Bush, thanks congress, thanks Bernanke and Paulson. I really do need to puke.
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Talk to the Dem's They have been in charge for two years already. When are you going to get off blaming everything but the crucifixion on Bush? Or is that his fault too?
Read my original post. You hard core Bush lovers sure are sensitive. BTW: All of this crap did happen on the
watch of Bushand the Democrat congress.
Location: On an Island in the west coast of New England
Posts: 13,132
RE: Goldman Sachs Paying Bonuses W/Bailout Funds
I wonder what will happen if the auto bailout happens. The big 3 dump tons of money into NASCAR. I wonder how the gooberment will look at that big cash cow?
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Too busy with fishing to spend much time here.
I wonder what will happen if the auto bailout happens. The big 3 dump tons of money into NASCAR. I wonder how the gooberment will look at that big cash cow?
It's a loan, and the return on NASCAR is huge, not many Honda drivers in that crowd[:-]
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"it's not that I am lazy, I just don't care"
Location: land of the Lilliputians, In the state of insanity
Posts: 24,185
RE: Goldman Sachs Paying Bonuses W/Bailout Funds
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ORIGINAL: Champlain Islander
I wonder what will happen if the auto bailout happens. The big 3 dump tons of money into NASCAR. I wonder how the gooberment will look at that big cash cow?
Interesting take. I had never thought about the NASCAR thing.
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kaafir mushrik
Unintended consequences and God have one thing in common: Liberals dont believe in either of them.
Location: land of the Lilliputians, In the state of insanity
Posts: 24,185
RE: Goldman Sachs Paying Bonuses W/Bailout Funds
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ORIGINAL: Canuck_Buck
If goobermentshand over money without controlling how it is used or at least managing it somehow, thensomeone somewhere is gonna have a party....lol
Just wait. The Big three have been bailed out. How much of that money is going to go straight to the union??? That is why we should have let them file chapter 11.
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kaafir mushrik
Unintended consequences and God have one thing in common: Liberals dont believe in either of them.
Goldman Sachs Paying Bonuses W/Bailout Funds
