House Democrats are so pleased with their performance in Congress that they believe taxpayers should be giving them a $4,500 pay raise.
Spending leaders have reportedly voiced support for 2020 funding bills that would no longer block cost-of-living adjustments. Congress had voted to freeze congressional salaries at $174,000 in 2009 as the midterm elections approached and while the Obama economy struggled.
GOP leaders struck down the automatic increases every year since.
Now, with Democrats regaining control of the House following the 2018 midterms, they’re setting their sites on an increase.
Evan Hollander, a spokesperson for the House Appropriations Committee, said: “There is strong bipartisan support for these modest inflation adjustments.”
The #LeftUnhinged Democrat Party wants to grow the Swamp and give Congress a pay-raise with Americans hard-earned tax dollars.
Congress is already dysfunctional!
This is Despicable! #ampFW https://t.co/LaR8wUZQa0
— FreedomWorks (@FreedomWorks) June 4, 2019
‘Bipartisan support’ is questionable at best, as opposition remains for anything that would provide poor optics to a political body already viewed negatively by the American people.
“A salary increase for us?” Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-CA) scoffed. “It’s not very high on my radar and it’d be as popular as the plague. It’d show kind of a disconnect with the people.”
An appropriate analogy since most American voters view Congress with more disdain than the bubonic plague.
“I think the American people would think that Congress ought to earn it first,” Senate Appropriations Chairman Richard Shelby (R-AL) suggested.
Have They Earned It?
It would appear House Democrats have moved on from their slogan of “for the people” and shifted more towards concern ‘for their wallets.’
Have they earned that right?
To date, their only legislative accomplishment has been a symbolic vote to pass amnesty legislation for Dreamers, putting the rights of illegals far above those of the people.
Roll Call reported in April that the opposition party has made a habit of holding “votes on resolutions that do not carry the force of law and are designed simply to send a message.”
In other words, they’re pretending to work hard while playing solitaire on their computer when the boss isn’t looking.
Don’t They Make Enough?
Furthermore, how is $174,000 a year not enough of a salary for members of Congress? It’s more than three times the average American’s salary, and yet still isn’t enough for these socialist elitists?
In 2011, two years after congressional pay raises were frozen at that rate, the Department of Defense reported the estimated salary of a Navy SEAL “with over a dozen years of experience and an E-7 pay grade” was about $54,000.
Who deserves the higher salary in that scenario?
Democrats are so enamored with a $15/hour wage for fast food workers while producing far less work than anyone in that industry, they should make that the congressional pay rate going forward.
That’s something the people will no doubt get behind.
