The US House of Representatives approved a salary increase for themselves yesterday, a healthy $4,400 per person. This raises their salary to an appalling 170K per year . Not bad for a group of people getting a 24% job approval rating from their alleged bosses. Stink at your job, make huge dough, and get regular raises. Good work if you can get it. Which is probably why it's so difficult to get any of these people to ever leave Washington and return to living the life of an ordinary citizen. In the real world, the compensation to performance ratio isn't nearly as good.

It is interesting to note this was a reasonably bi-partisan vote. 64% of voting Democrats supported it, as well as 50% of voting Republicans. Although the GOP is slightly less culpable, neither party can legitimately claim their hands are clean on this one.

Minnesota's gang of eight representatives show a similar tendency of bi-partisan support for giving themselves a raise. 60% of our Democrats and 33% of our Republicans jumped on the automatic cost of living increase expressway. Individually, there were some surprises.

Voting hell yes, I'm here to bleed taxpayers for every nickel I can get:
John Kline (R)
Betty McCollum (D)
James Oberstar (D)
Collin Peterson (D)

Voting, no, we're not worthy:
Michele Bachmann (R)
Keith Ellison (D)
Jim Ramstad (R)
Tim Walz (D)

It's too bad Kline went wobbly on this one. A united front for fiscal accountability among our GOP contingent might have been a powerful symbol come election time. As for the DFL'ers, I would have guessed they'd all be up for a little more government cheese, at any time. That two of them rejected it seems like a sell out of their principles.

There is another variable at work that appears to be more powerful than party affiliation in predicting willingness to give yourself a raise. The same list, presented with the number of terms they have served in Congress.

Voting hell yes, I'm here to bleed taxpayers for every nickel I can get:
John Klein (R) - 3rd term
Betty McCollum (D) - 4th term
James Oberstar (D) - 17th term
Collin Peterson (D) - 9th term

Voting, no, we're not worthy:
Michele Bachmann (R) 1st term
Keith Ellison (D) - 1st term
Jim Ramstad (R) - 9th term
Tim Walz (D) - 1st term

Only the Rammer throws a hammer into this perfect correlation of incumbency and the mindset that at 165K, you're underpaid. But, as our Congressmen would I'm sure agree, that's close enough for government work.

I'm willing to accept this as another piece of powerful evidence in favor of term limits. How many of these people would have voted for the increase if they knew they'd never personally benefit from it? And with the further knowledge that they'd be back home in their districts scratching out an existence, having to pay more for some other, less qualified stooge to do the job? Under these conditions, I predict a vote somewhere in the range of 0 yea to 435 nay.

Solution, all Congressmen are limited to a maximum of ONE term.

If they must have multiple terms, no Congressman can ever personally benefit from a salary increase passed while they are in office. That is, your pay is FROZEN at the amount you received in your first year. For 34 year incumbent Jim Oberstar, I think that was about $2,587. Any chance he's still be doing his "public service" for us at that rate of pay? Highly unlikely. But if he was, at least we'd be paying him about what he was worth.

Labels: Politics-Local (06-07)

Posted by Saint Paul--Link