Congress Grants Themselves a Raise

The concept of shared sacrifice does not apply to Congress:

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), a non-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.”

Although it would not have saved a huge amount of money, the symbolism of freezing their pay would have been a meaningful message to taxpayers who are being asked to sacrifice to bail others out. By refusing to do so Congress implies that what they are calling a crisis may not be so much of a crisis after all.