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In the link I gave BlackLord..."In the House of Representatives, Rep. Jim Matheson's (D-Utah, 2nd) motion to bring the pay raise to a separate vote was rejected 240-173. The Senate must still pass the bill and it must then be signed by President Bush before the pay raises can take effect. Individual members are free to refuse their pay increases, and some choose to do so."
Looks like 173 Congress Critters got it right.
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I think we can all agree on this.
Kumbaya, my Lord, kumbaya
Kumbaya, my Lord, kumbaya
Kumbaya, my Lord, kumbaya
O Lord, kumbaya
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Greg the dogsitter wrote:
[quote=Black Landlord]
If these folks can't get paid competitively in our congress, they'll go work at some other congress that pays more.
:-)
Bye Bye.....let's look and see who's paying more and send Congress an email !:villagers:
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So, what can we, as individuals do?
Oh that's right, not a gawd damn thing except piss and moan about it.
--and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Whoopsie!
IMO, we've lost that government some time ago.
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Its expensive to live in DC and most of them also must maintain a residence in their home state. Which is worse, paying them enough to make that possible or giving them another reason to be receptive to all the filthy lucre floating around them?
$160K is not an enormous amount of money for someone at the top of our governmental bureaucracy. Most if not all have given up much higher incomes to take the job in government. You'd want them to be responsible to the average citizen, but they constantly rub elbows with people in the private sector that make exponentially higher salaries. Their pay is a minuscule part of the federal budget. I'd be in favor of paying them what they think they need then holding them to higher standards.
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> $160K is not an enormous amount of money
> for someone at the top of our governmental
> bureaucracy.
You seem to think that's all they make and all the compensation they get.
They also get huge sums for every committee and commission that they are on and every title they snag within the structure of the House and Senate.
The home states usually pay for room and board when they're in DC. They don't have to pay for transportation. They don't have to pay for health care. Lobbyists pay for their meals and "fact finding" vacations. They get paid for public speeches. They get paid for appearances on tv.
'Nice "work" if you can get it.
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Yep, lots of perks go with that $160,000. When have you read about a current congressman or a RETIRED congressman moaning because of no money. They all retire and continue to live high on the hog.
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Doc wrote:
> $160K is not an enormous amount of money
> for someone at the top of our governmental
> bureaucracy.
You seem to think that's all they make and all the compensation they get.
They also get huge sums for every committee and commission that they are on and every title they snag within the structure of the House and Senate.
The home states usually pay for room and board when they're in DC. They don't have to pay for transportation. They don't have to pay for health care. Lobbyists pay for their meals and "fact finding" vacations. They get paid for public speeches. They get paid for appearances on tv.
'Nice "work" if you can get it.
I know about all the extras. Still, you add it all up and its only a fraction of what their cohorts in the private sector make. The average compensation for a CEO in a Fortune 500 company is around 11 million. I'd like to stop the revolving door between Multinational Corps, Wall Street and our legislators. If it means we pay them more and then insist on real ethics reform I think its worth it.
Its easy to use a broad brush to paint them all as crooks and sycophants, and some are, but not all of them. When you enter public life at that level you give up a lot. You have no privacy, any decision you make will be condemned and second guessed, your character will be questioned constantly and the media will latch onto any indiscretion no matter how small and blow it all out of proportion. It seems a wonder that anyone would willingly sign up for that, especially when they see their equivalents in the private sector making a lot more money.
We need to attract the best and brightest into public service. If it helps to pay them commensurately then I'm for it.
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> If it means we pay them more and then insist
> on real ethics reform I think its worth it.
Since when did "insisting" on anything to the U.S. government ever coincide with ethics?
You're also forgetting that after they retire from Congress, they almost inevitably get cozy jobs on the boards of a bunch of multinational corporations with millions in compensation from that.
...And they still get free health care and giant pensions and speaking fees and all sorts of other perquisites.
As for privacy, they've got too much.
I'd gladly give them the pay raise if they'd surrender their privacy. If the general public knew who wrote each piece of legislation and if all of our legislators meetings and phone conversations were broadcast to the public, maybe some of our legislators would show a bit of decency every once in awhile... just to keep from being impeached.
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Yeah, I'm not with you there either wags.
A true public servant would be willing to sacrifice some degree of excess in order to serve. You seem to be justifying graft as a rational response to jealousy of the salaries of others.
I will agree that a few thousand a year to adjust for inflation is not enough to form a lynch mob about.
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