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  1. #1
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    Congress gives itself a pay raise

    http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2008/12 ... og-groups/


    As Americans across the country grapple with one of the worst financial crises since the Great Depression, members of Congress quietly are getting a pay raise.

    Each lawmaker's annual salary is due for a $4,700 cost-of-living increase starting in January, which will amount to a cost to taxpayers of $2.5 million in 2009, infuriating watchdog groups.

    "Members of Congress don't deserve one additional dime of taxpayer money in 2009," said Tom Schatz, president of the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste.

    "While thousands of Americans are facing layoffs and downsizing, Congress should be mortified to accept a raise," he said in a written
    statement.

    Members of Congress make an average of $169,300 a year, with Congressional leaders making slightly more. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Cailf., makes $217,400, while the majority and minority leaders in the House and Senate each make $188,100.

    The raise will increase the average salary to about $174,000, up 2.8 percent.

    Pelosi's and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's offices did not respond to FOXNews.com' s requests for comment.

    Pay raises for public officials, whether at the federal, state or local level, usually spark outrage among taxpayer advocates. But the deepening financial crisis has led even a few lawmakers to object.

    Earlier this year, Rep. Harry Mitchell, a first-term Democrat from Arizona, introduced legislation that would have stopped the automatic pay adjustments from kicking in for members next year. But the bill, which drew 34 cosponsors, died in committee.

    Two other members of Congress, Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind, and Rep. Gresham Barrett, R-SC, also tried to block the wages but didn't get very far. Burton plans to return his pay increase to the Treasury Department.

    "As we face the most challenging economic crisis in our history, and
    with many Americans and Hoosiers enduring personal financial hardships, I am opposed to any pay increase for members of Congress in 2009," he said in a written statement. He said he'll try again next year.

    Lawmakers have received automatic raises since 1989. As part of an ethics bill, Congress gave up its ability to accept pay for speeches and made annual cost-of-living pay increases automatic unless lawmakers voted otherwise.

    Lawmakers have rejected pay raises six times since then, most recently last year, when Democrats, newly elected to the majority, had vowed to block an increase in their paychecks until Congress raised the minimum wage.

    For the past eight years, Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, has been trying
    to end the automatic salary hike for House members, arguing that spending priorities in a time of war and economic crisis do not include pay raises for lawmakers.

    Matheson wants to put the automatic pay raises to a vote.
    "At a time when people are losing their jobs, their homes and their retirement, I think the least we could do is openly debate whether we
    should take the pay increase this year or do some belt-tightening, " he said in a written statement.

    As he has done for the past eight years, Matheson plans to donate his pay raise to charity, his spokeswoman said.

    The Senior Citizens League asserted the pay raise would rank each lawmaker in the top six percent of American households.

    "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," the group's chairman, Daniel O'Connell, said in a written statement. "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."

    The group estimates that a senior receiving average benefits will get
    a $63 monthly increase to just $1,153 per month next year, increasing
    their annual total to $13,836.

    The pay raises come as the economic recession deepens. The economy
    lost 533,000 jobs in November, bringing the unemployment rate to 6.7
    percent.

  2. #2
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    ladies and gentlemen, its time to start voting out these morons who are now in office and vote in new members. its no wonder this country is falling to hell in a hand basket. Your elected MORONS in DC do not care about you. they only care about big business and keeping their job. FIRE THEM ALL. stop voting the same people in!
    Take two minutes out of your day, every day or every other day and call their offices bot hin DC and locally where you live and tell them to get off their butts and work for the american people. Not illegals, not big business who want cheap labor. not a foreign government who tells us what we need to do. not at a time when companies are closing their US plants and moving them to sweat shop countries like china and southeast asis where minimum wages are less than a dollar an hour.
    Capitol hill has a toll free number 800-828-0498. Find out who your rep is in the house by going to house.gov
    GET INVOLVED stop talking about it and do something.
    Ameircan woke up when all the illegals and their supporters protested back on May 1 a couple of years ago and said "hell no" your not taking over my country. and americans called and even had the phone system at capitol hill collapse when Harry Reid, "fatman" kennedy, john mccain and those people tryied to shove amnesty down our throats, DO IT AGAIN

  3. #3
    EYE4TRUTH's Avatar
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    congress to grant themselfs a pay raise!

    Write your elected officals. Call a spade a spade don't hold back. This was my letter to the following Officals.

    December 23, 2008

    [recipient address was inserted here]
    Message sent to the following recipients:
    Representative Gary Miller (R)
    Senator Boxer (D)
    Senator Feinstein (D)


    I oppose giving Congress a pay raise this year because it is the fault of
    government that we are in this economic disaster. It is through their bad
    management and inability to perform and communicate with one another that prevented them from taking action long before this happened..

    Our elected officials are not to be trusted with the welfare of America. They have supported moving our job base offshore and selling the very bad idea of globalization which has done great harm to our country. Our elected officials have shown just how deep corruption runs and just how little they think of America and its people. Not only do I oppose the ignorant idea of them giving themselves a raise but I oppose they very thought of most of them being in government.

  4. #4
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    This is the same theory that if you run your company into the ground, you still get your annual bonus. Apparently, these fools have no problem with the fact they have run the entire country into the ground, but still feel they need to be compensated more for "serving" the American people.
    Great letter Eye. Hopefully it will get read.
    Join our efforts to Secure America's Borders and End Illegal Immigration by Joining ALIPAC's E-Mail Alerts network (CLICK HERE)

  5. #5
    Senior Member koobster's Avatar
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    AMEN!!!!!
    Proud to be an AMERICAN

  6. #6
    Senior Member koobster's Avatar
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    Why do they get a pay raise? Did they do something GOOD for our Country?
    To me they deserve to have their wages 3/4 cut.
    They are distorying this COUNTRY.
    They all need to be thrown in prison, and the key thrown out the door.
    Proud to be an AMERICAN

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