Block the back-door raises

Courier-Post (Cherry Hill, N.J.), on pay raises for Congress: When Americans are facing tight budgets, public servants should not be giving themselves raises.
The U.S. House of Representatives last week quietly allowed a plan to move forward that would raise members' salaries by 2 percent to $168,500. The median household income in 2004 was $53,692, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Good luck finding information about the pay raise bill if you don't know where to look -- it's tucked away in legislation to fund the Department of Transportation and other agencies.
Where's the sunshine?
If members of the Republican-controlled House of Representatives think they deserve this raise, why didn't they do it in the light of day?
The raise and remainder of the bill now heads to the U.S. Senate, where we hope Sens. Frank Lautenberg, D-Cliffside Park, and Robert Menendez, D-Hoboken, will join the opposition to the underhanded maneuver.
The minimum wage today is $5.15 an hour, or $10,700 a year. It has not been raised since 1997. During the same period, however, annual congressional pay has increased by $31,000.
That's simply wrong, and something needs to be done about it.