What do you think of the $4700.00 pay increase for Congress ??

[kentuck]

Do you really think they deserve it? Of course, they claim that they only take it because the "previous" Congress voted it in. They don't tell you that they were that "previous" Congress...

After they criticized the auto executives for flying in their private jets to Washington, they turn around and take a pay raise. Is there a time they would not take it?

Personally, I don't think they have earned it. In fact, I think maybe they should take a pay cut? What have they done to deserve a pay increase?

I know there is such a thing as "inflation" but what about the poor sucker that is making minimum wage or just above? Should he get a "inflation" raise every year? Just who are they representing? Surely not a lot of people that I know...

[Bjorn Against]

1. I think the pay a member of Congress receives should equal the pay of the median American worker

Their pay should increase or decrease as the median wage of an American worker increases or decreases. If they want a pay raise then they need to work to get the rest of us higher wages as well.

[Dreamer Tatum]

4. Or the median everage lawyer, business owner...

...people in Congress tend to be better educated and more experienced than the typical American worker.

[Bjorn Against]

6. Yeah, more experienced at running this nation into the ground.

[Joe the Liberal]

8. Lol.......

:rofl:

[Mari333]

2. of course they dont deserve it.

let them live on 8 bucks an hour for a year. that would wake them up .

[LWolf]

3. We'd all like that raise.

I think we need it more than they do.

[Joe the Liberal]

5. Is'nt there something that prevents them from giving themselves pay raises?

If there is no such thing then there should be.

[salguine]

9. Yeah, I'll bet a recall of a few members would make them see the light.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

7. It's chump change compared to what the lobbyists pay them.

"The government of my country snubs honest simplicity, but fondles artistic villainy, and I think I might have developed into a very capable pickpocket if I had remained in the public service a year or two."

"Right here in this heart and home and fountain-head of law this great factory where are forged those rules that create good order and compel virtue and honesty in the other communities of the land, rascality achieves its highest perfection."

Mark Twain

[jane_pippin]

10. Do they have to take it? Like, if a member voted against it, would s/he

be able to refuse it?

[eyesroll]

12. Feingold returns his raise to the treasury every year.

He'll take a raise when he's reelected, but not during the rest of his term.

[jane_pippin]

13. Thank you. I thought he did something like that but

I couldn't remember off the top of my head exactly what it was.

[natrat]

11. one of the first things they did 8 years ago was to make it easier to hide their assets

so i think that 4700 absolutely pales in comparison to what some of them have stashed in the caymans