Congressional Pay

This is just a little something that always bothers me. Congress is a group of people who get to determine how much money they make every year. To be completely fair, in 2010 and 2011, the automatic income adjustment did not take place. But, ever since 1989, each year every congressional member gets an automatic bump in their pay if they do nothing. That's kinda cheeky.

I wish I could afford to give myself an automatic pay raise every year.

They need to change the law to make it a bit more... manual. You know, it should even be contingent on how well congress as a whole performs. You and I, well if you also hold a private sector job, have to perform to a certain level, and for the company in general to be doing well, to justify a pay raise.

Congress currently has an approval rating hoving in the mid-teens. They have not enacted any significant piece of legislation since the dreaded "Obamacare". Additionally, their ability to address Obama's spiraling spending (face it, Congress hasn't passed a budget in well over 1100 days, Obama and his Czars just spend as they will) has caused some debt issues to get larger. Basically, they aren't doing their job, they don't deserve to get a pay raise.

I think we should all get to vote on our income tax returns every year. As we watch our money be yanked out of our hands, we should be presented with some questions about how that money will be spent.

"Shall Congress be given a pay raise this coming year?"

"Shall Congress mindlessly spend your money?"

Ummm... let me think about that... "No."

I like several other people's suggestions that we need to enact various concepts like a balanced budget amendment requiring the entire federal government to only be able to operate on a zero-based budget. Or that members of congress don't receive any salary if there is no budget. Or, how about something a little more harsh? Members of congress get automatically fired if the approval rating is under a certain threshold? Say, 30%. Which is overly generous. Even the original Buffett Plan was nice.

"I could end the deficit in 5 minutes," he told CNBC. "You just pass a law that says that anytime there is a deficit of more than 3% of GDP, all sitting members of Congress are ineligible for re-election."

Instead, we have a congress that gets a pay raise by doing nothing.

Will they get one in 2012?