Telling themselves they've earned it, congressmen give themselves a pay raise

If you went to work about every third day, do you think you'd be likely to get a raise? If when you did go to work, you spent as much time spinning your wheels as getting anything done, would you be rewarded with a bigger pay check? How about if you consistently spent more than your company took in, would your profligate ways be rewarded ?
Of course not -- unless you were a member of Congress. Then, you could give yourself a raise, which is exactly what Congress is doing.
It's not a large raise, by congressional standards -- only about $4,000 a year. It will bring the annual salary for most members of the Senate and House of Representatives to $162,100. Leaders make more. Even its overall cost is a drop in the federal budget's bucket -- about $2 million. That won't even be noticed in a budget that contains more than $435 billion in deficits.
It's not the amount of the raise, it's the shameless way in which a totally undistinguished Congress rewards its own mediocrity.
The House had been in session all of 99 days this year, the Senate, 107. The average full-time worker has put in about 180 days by this time of the year. Now, we realize that congressmen work on days when their houses aren't in session, but, still, the business of a legislator is to legislate -- and that's done in session.
Back from vacation
Lawmakers are back in Washington after the longest summer vacation since the Truman administration and you might expect that they'd go right to work on the important stuff, like the 12 of 13 major spending bills Congress has yet to pass. You'd be wrong.
Instead, the Senate plans a vote on a flag-burning amendment to the Constitution. The House plans votes on a bill that would ban the federal courts, including the Supreme Court, from hearing challenges to "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance. The House also plans to vote on amending the Constitution to ban gay marriages.
These measures have two things in common. They are being pursued at this time for purely political motives, and they are keeping Congress from working on more important issues that have the potential to affect the lives of Americans.
Last week, only one congressman, Rep. Jim Matheson of Utah, spoke against the annual pay raise provision. & quot;Let us send a signal to the American people that Congress gets it, & quot; Matheson said in urging his colleagues to reject their raises.
Representatives and senators responded in a way that showed that the only thing they are prepared to get is a bigger pay check.