The AP report of this on Yahoo News was weirdly headlined as "House Agrees to $3,100 Pay Raise for 2006," as if someone had to badger them into accepting it.
In fact, they rolled over the one man who tried to inject even a shred of accountability into the process like he was a speed bump:
In a 263-152 vote, the House blocked a bid by Rep. Jim Matheson (news, bio, voting record), D-Utah, to force an up-or-down vote on the pay raise. Instead, lawmakers will automatically receive the raise — officially a cost of living adjustment — as provided for in a 1989 law that barred them from pocketing big speaking fees in exchange for an annual COLA.
[ . . . ] "It's not a pay raise," said House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas. "It's an adjustment so that they're not losing their purchasing power."
Oh, well--now I feel better.
The last time Congress raised the federal minimum wage was in 1997 (to $5.15/hr, on the purchasing power of which the members of the House are invited to try living, as an experiment--especially since what $5.15 bought in 1997 would cost $6.07 in 2005).
At the current federal minimum wage, working a forty-hour week, it would take over 15 weeks (almost 4 months) to earn as much as the raise the House just gave itself.
It would take over 800 weeks (over 15 years) at that rate to earn $165,200, which is the new salary of House members.
And remember: That pay raise is extorted from us in exchange for the promise from House members to resist the corrupting influence of outlandish speaking fees (proof of my theory that, if you look at most bad laws, you'll find they began life as the solution to a problem caused by other bad laws).
Perhaps the poor schlubs out there getting nickled-and-dimed to death in minimum wage jobs need to offer the same bargain: Promise to forgo collecting fat honoraria and speaking fees in exchange having the minimum wage raised to, say, $5.75.
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