Pay Raises for Lawmakers Anger Watchdog Groups

They should have froze this increase before they left!!


Pay Raises for Lawmakers Anger Watchdog Groups
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2008/12/20/pay-raises-lawmakers-angers-watchdog-groups/

Each lawmaker is due for a $4,700 cost-of-living wage hike starting in January, which will amount to a total cost of $2.5 million for taxpayers

By Stephen Clark - FOXNews.com - Saturday, December 20, 2008

As Americans across the country grapple with one of the worst financial crises since the Great Depression, members of Congress quietly are getting a pay raise.

Each lawmaker's annual salary is due for a $4,700 cost-of-living increase starting in January, which will amount to a cost to taxpayers of $2.5 million in 2009, infuriating watchdog groups.

"Members of Congress don't deserve one additional dime of taxpayer money in 2009," said Tom Schatz, president of the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste. "While thousands of Americans are facing layoffs and downsizing, Congress should be mortified to accept a raise," he said in a written statement.

Members of Congress make an average of $169,300 a year, with Congressional leaders making slightly more. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Cailf., makes $217,400, while the majority and minority leaders in the House and Senate each make $188,100.

One of the best governments money can buy :grr:

Unless we say "no thanks" and turn it down all of us should get cost of living increases to keep up with inflation.

And if the cowards in Congress dont agree they should turn down their increases so they're getting as far behind as the rest of us.

PRINCETON, NJ -- Approval of Congress has dipped below 20% for only the fourth time in the 34 years Gallup has asked Americans to rate the job Congress is doing. Today's 18% score, based on a May 8-11 Gallup Poll, matches the record lows Gallup recorded in August 2007 and March 1992.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/107242/congress-approval-rating-ties-lowest-gallup-records.aspx

Obviously they needed the raise so they could feel good about themselves.

Congress does not deserve a raise right now...America is hurting too badly.

do it to us again next year, and the year after that - and then we'll reelect most of them again. They know this, too.

Especially after such laws as the "The PATRIOT Act", and the "Military Commissions Act"

And of course the ever popular "AUMF" law of 2002 (otherwise known as the IWR), which wasn't actually a law but a RESOLUTION which AUTHORISED the use of the military, but WAS NOT a declaration of war.

Regardless, House and Senate members' salaries should be frozen for the duration of the economic crisis.

bailout bill - how's that working out for them?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081210/ap_on_go_co/judicial_pay_raise

If the $14 billion bailout plan for U.S. automakers passes, it will help more than just Ford, Chrysler and General Motors. Federal judges would get a pay raise, as well.

The raise — an annual cost of living adjustment, or COLA — would bring U.S. District court judges up to par with members of Congress, who will receive an almost $5,000 boost on Jan. 1. District judges and lawmakers now earn $169,300 a year but are expected to be awarded a 2.8 percent raise next year, said Dick Carelli, a spokesman for the Administrative Office of the United States Courts.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., insisted that the judicial pay raise go into the automaker loan measure, which is the only item of business on Congress' lame-duck agenda.
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