U.S. Senate approves its fifth straight pay raise

[TheeBadOne]

WASHINGTON -- The Senate voted itself a pay raise for the fifth straight year, boosting the annual salary to about $158,000 in 2004.

The House also agreed last month to accept an increase in the annual cost-of-living allowance, which gives all members of Congress a boost of about 2.2 percent in their take-home pay starting in January.

Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., who every year stands up against pay increases, said that with the economy still weak and many Americans finding it hard to make ends meet, it was ``the wrong time for Congress to give itself a pay hike.''

``This automatic stealth pay raise system is just wrong,'' he added.

Feingold said that with an annual increase of about $3,400 slated for next year, an election year, members of Congress will have received a $21,000 raise in their pay over the past five years.

The Senate, by a 60-34 margin, tabled or killed his amendment to a pending appropriations bill.

Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, said it was a mistake to call it a pay raise, and that lawmakers were merely receiving a cost-of-living increase being given to other federal workers and military personnel.

``This increase is required by law,'' he said.

The pay issue was taken up as part of a $90 billion spending bill for fiscal 2004 for the departments of Transportation and Treasury. It includes a 4.1 percent raise for both civilian and military employees. Under a complicated formula, that translates to about 2.2 percent for members of Congress. This year, rank-and-file members will receive $154,700.

That's slightly less than the average wage increase in private business. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, wages among all nongovernment workers rose an average 2.7 percent from July 2002 through June 2003.

The 2.2 percent increase also applies to the vice president, congressional leaders and Supreme Court justices. President Bush's $400,00 salary is unaffected by the legislation.

http://www.startribune.com/stories/484/4171452.html
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Glad they always take good care of the most important things 1st...

 

[Tim Currie]

I really don't know why this doesn't really piss more people off????????

 

[Waitone]

Snivelling cowardice for our elected reps passing a law which gives them automatic pay raises without a vote. They must vote to turn the raise down.

Snivelling cowardice.

 

[MrAcheson]

Sorry but I got the 4.1% pay raise from the US government (my employer) in January. If you're not getting a regular pay raise to balance out inflation then you are effectively taking a pay cut every year. Theoretically, elected officials shouldn't be career politicians blah, blah, blah *insert rant*. However even if you're not sitting in that office next year, the new guy will need to support himself and they will be making less and less if it doesn't happen. At least this way congress only gets a raise when the rest of the government does, kinda like what Ben and Jerry's used to do with their executives (only allowed to make 14x the salary of the lowest paid employee).

Incidentally the congressional lifestyle is pretty expensive for most congresspersons. Housing anywhere near the beltway is very expensive and that doesn't even count your bills back home. Still I think congress gets a separate housing allowance to help take care of part of this?

 

[moa]

With all the millionaires in the Senate, you would think they would turn down a salary altogether. Examples are Kennedy (D-MA) and Rockefeller (D-WV).

Then there are the many of millions of dollars in campaign contributions they can probably dip their hand into.

Saw in the Washington Times recently that the trail lawyers associations have contributed since 1990 about $500 million to Washington politicians. Of the top 15 receipents, 10 are Democrats.

 

[Nazirite]

The word Poli = many
The word tic = blood sucking creature

I work for Uncle Sam as well but I don’t have the same philosophy as most government workers. It wouldn’t greatly hurt my feeling if we didn’t get a pay raise this year, (Being good for the county and all) but a raise does help. Most of the people I work with are moderate Democrats, but a few are hardcore liberals. Some of them own guns but would vote for an anti-gun liberal every time.

I have never really understood this, party loyalty runs pretty deep with some folks. I come from a conservative religion background , but I am no saint. It always amazed me how some of the church faithful, who attend every service, some service as deacons, will vote for a Democrat every time for the simple reason there daddy was a Democrat. I’m not preaching but if you belong to a Southern Baptist church, which is very pro-life, how could you vote for a Democrat. If you own firearms how could you vote for an anti-gun Democrat (which most are).

Sorry for getting off on a tangent but I have always wondered about these things. Maybe I should do a study.