Last week, according to
Roll Call,
Tim Murphy voted on a bill that included a newly inserted provision that would increase his pay, along with every other non-leader member of Congress, by $3,100. This provision had been stripped from the appropriation bill by the
Senate, but Congress did not want to share in the sacrfices that it is asking everyone else to make. We can not afford student loans, medical care or food stamps according to the Republican leadership in the House, but
Mr. Delay believes that we can afford a pay raise for a do-nothing but go into debt Congress as "It's an adjustment so that they're not losing their purchasing power."
Political Animal has an excellent run down of this issue. But I want to pull this in a little bit more locally. Three weeks ago, the voters of Pennsylvania said enough about the insider dealings of our own representatives in Harrisburg. Passing pay raises in the middle of the night after asking for sacrifices from the more vulnerable members of society is not right, it is not just and it is not moral.
Pennsylvania realizes that we are all in this together and that we must share the common load to produce public benefits. We need to restore this common sense to Washington.
Tom believes that we should seperate Congressional pay from the pay of judges. Secondly, he proposes that we index Congressional pay to the change in median real wages.
If the economy is doing well and is helping out the vast majority of middle America, Congress gets paid a little bit more. However if we see an economic "recovery" that due to policy and tax choices have seen median incomes decline over the past four years, Congress can share in our experience too. This is just common sense, for we are all in this together and not all of us are golden parachute CEO's, or as President Bush calls these people 'my base'
Dave A