Some members of congress feel they are underpaid, and are voicing their opinions about this imagined slight. I say imagined because members of congress take home $174,000 a year in salary, and that doesn’t include their extensive benefits.
Lets look at our first chronic complainer, Rep. Steve Southerland, a Florida Republican. Mr. Southerland is quoted in the Florida Capital News as saying that his salary is not much, when you consider the hours he puts in, and added, “They’re shooting at us.”
“If you think this job pays too much,” he continued. “With those kinds of risks, and cutting me off from my family business, I’ll just tell you: This job don’t mean that much to me. I had a good life in Panama City.”
I have so many problems with this statement that I won’t even comment on the grammar. First, how much do you want to bet he runs for reelection. Also, his family business, a funeral parlor, reportedly paid him $90,000 a year, so he essentially doubled his salary. Throw in Congress’ almost legendary benefits program, and I don’t see the problem. When you make $174,000 a year, and the mean annual wage for the American worker is $44,410, according to the US Department of Labor statistics as of 2010, you must have huge cojones to complain about a lack of compensation.
But lets look deeper at those numbers. I checked, and as of 2009, over the last ten years Congress had been in session an average of 140 days a year. Doing a little math, that comes out to $1242.86 a day, and $155.36 an hour, based on an eight-hour day. And I’m sure Congress puts in very few eight-hour days. Even making allotments for more hours here in 2011, due to the debt ceiling debacle – which Congress created – I don’t see a wage problem.
But Mr. Southerland isn’t the only Congressman complaining. Rep. Sean Duffy, a Republican from Wisconsin, claims he struggles to pay his mortgage and student loan bills.
“At this point, I’m not living high on the hog,” Mr. Duffy is quoted as saying. Funny, but I didn’t know public servants were supposed to live “High on the hog.”
And Linda Sanchez, a Democrat from California, is reportedly living “paycheck to paycheck.” Well, at least according to her. Life must be tough.
The greed here permeates both sides of the aisle. Neither party is there to represent the people, which is what they were elected to do. And they are not being paid to campaign for office, although I think they feel they should be. What other defense can these congressmen provide, to prove they are underpaid. And watch, all of them will run for reelection. To them, politics is not a service, it’s a job, and a well-paying one at that. Once elected, few of these public servants choose to leave office voluntarily. Even after ethics violations, they fight to keep their jobs. We need to cleanse Washington of this riff-raff. Like my boy Barty says, “Reelect No One.”
breezespeaks 