The House voted themselves a raise today....$3,300...just 2 percent. But the minimum wage has been sitting at 5.15 for the last 9 or 10 years. The Congress is well on its way to breaking the record for fewest days worked in a year by any Congress in our history, including the "Do-nothing" Congress of 1948. How do they look at themselves in the mirror? They say it is only "2%". Well, $3,300 to a minimum wage worker would be about a 30% increase in total pay! But, for some reason, they don't deserve to have COLAs. We save those for the people that really need it.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/13/AR2006061301123_pf.html<snip>
Despite record low approval ratings, House lawmakers Tuesday embraced a $3,300 pay raise that will increase their salaries to $168,500.
The 2 percent cost-of-living raise would be the seventh straight for members of the House and Senate.
Lawmakers easily squelched a bid by Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, to get a direct vote to block the COLA, which is automatically awarded unless lawmakers vote to block it.
In the early days of GOP control of Congress, lawmakers routinely denied themselves the annual COLA. Last year, the Senate voted 92-6 to deny the raise but quietly surrendered the position in House-Senate talks.
As part of an ethics reform bill in 1989, Congress gave up their ability to accept pay for speeches and made annual cost-of-living pay increases automatic unless the lawmakers voted otherwise.
The pay issue has been linked to the annual Transportation and Treasury Department spending bill because that measure stipulates that civil servants get raises of 2.7 percent, the same as military personnel will receive. Under a complicated formula, the increase translates to 2 percent for members of Congress.
....more
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