Faced with the worst unemployment in decades, a continuing recession and a federal deficit that is breaking records even before counting the costs of the Iraq war and reconstruction our elected leaders have taken swift action in raising their own salaries.
USATODAY.com - Lawmakers include themselves in federal pay raise
WASHINGTON (AP)—The House on Thursday approved a 2.2% pay raise for Congress—slightly less than average wage increases in private business but enough to boost lawmakers’ annual salaries to about $158,000 next year.
It must be nice to be able to give yourself raises like that. I bet I’d be earning $158,000 a year by now if I could just haul off and give myself a raise every year. Hell, in the two and a half years I’ve been working for The Automotive CompanyTM I’ve not received a single raise, though they did cut everyone’s pay by 7% across the board a little more than a year after I started working there. Now word has it there’s another across the board pay cut of up to 10% about to happen to all “agency” (read: contractors) in the near future.
That would take my pay down a total of 17% since I started working there. What a great reward after being shoved into a new job role I didn’t want without a pay raise. Here, have more work and greater responsibility and we’ll say “thanks” by cutting your salary by another 10%!
No wonder their stock is in the toilet. Guess I’ll be polishing up that old resume a little sooner than I had anticipated. :X
Posted on 09/05/2003 at 05:27 AM 
Posted on 09/08/2003 at 04:41 AM 
While it is annoying that congress can just vote raises for congress...at least they can’t actually raise their own salaries for the current term--only for the “next” election term.
This is thanks to the hard work of a single individual who got the first(?) proposed amendment to the constituion passed only 200+ years since it’s introduction.
Constitutional trivia 101.