With all due respect, and no flaming intended...
BigBlueDodge wrote:Well, I'll put on the flame suite and throw out an alternate opinion on this.
I may actually be one of the few that is okay with the salary that Congress makes. After all these are the individuals who essentially run this country. They carry a great deal of responsibility in their jobs, are are responsible for setting laws that impact the lives of MILLIONS of people. I'm okay with paying these individuals with a decent salary. To be honest, what do you feel is a "fair" pay for an individual responsible for managing the lives of 300 million people, an economy generating trillions of dollars per year, and setting policies that affect the world.
Next, the article says that the salary for the Congressman is $169,300. If you think about it, that's not alot. The company I'm consulting for, their directors make more than that. And that's not even counting the VP's and C'level execs. I can tell you that the Directors I'm working with carry a significantly less amount of responsibility in their job (compared with a Congressman), and make just as much, if not more in annual pay. Heck, the superintendant for my kids school district makes more money than a federal Congressman.
Last, the $4700 is a mere 2.7% pay increase. I don't know about you, but I'd be pretty upset if all I knew I'd get each year was a 2.7% increase in salary. That works out be equivalent to a cost of living increase. I'd guarantee that most of us on average get more than 2.7% increase in pay per year.
That last part just isn't true for many, if not most, large corporations - for whom annual salary increases are merit based, and not tied to COL. At one corporation where I was a middle level manager, we used to get a memo from the CEO each year stating that we needed to write a report defending each of the salary increases we were recommending for our employees. Well, we also had our month end report
and our year end reports due - on which our own continued employment depended. So guess which reports tended to get shuffled aside by the managers whose responsibilities included recommending raises? And that was in California, the supposed Valhalla of Labor. I'm not complaining. It was just a fact of life.
A) I would agree that $169,300 is adequate Congressional compensation -
if they were earning it. They are not. They are doing a
terrible job - and I count both major parties in that condemnation. They are a do-nothing Congress. In a day and age when congressmen deride President Bush's 30% approval rating, their own is less than half of that. That is abnormally low. If they were doing even a halfway decent job, their approval rating would be at least 50%. If I were not self-employed, a 13% approval rating from my managers would get me fired. As a self-employed person, a 13% approval rating from my customers puts me out of business. Therefore, Congressmen, for the most part, are not worth $169,300. Period. And they are going to have to do a
much better job in order to get the the point where they actually
are earning it.
B) Even C level officers in corporate America have their salaries set by a board of directors. They don't vote for their own salaries, and they don't vote themselves pay raises. Their compensation is supposed to be based on performance (and it usually is), and if they perform better, they get raises. If they don't, they get fired - just like anybody else.
And most board members in the corporate world get compensation, but not salary. But Almighty Congress gets to decide its own pay structure, and gets to vote itself an automatic pay raise that they haven't earned.
C) I'll bet you a dozen Krispy Kremes that the
average taxpayer does not know that Congress has set themselves up with this sweet deal where they automatically get this raise
on top of the other perks they have voted for themselves. Furthermore, I'll bet you that those same taxpayers are largely ignorant of the fact that Congress doesn't feel motivated to secure Social Security
because they themselves are not going to be dependent on it.
From the National Taxpayers Union:
Members of Congress began paying into Social Security in 1983, as part of a government-wide pension overhaul. This is a requirement, and Members may not opt out of it. They then have the option of participating in one of two pension plans, depending upon when they were elected (most of them do). If elected before 1984, they participate in the Civil Service Retirement System; if elected 1984 and after, they participate in the Federal Employee Retirement System. These two plans are also offered to rank and file federal employees, EXCEPT that the Congressional plan's benefit is calculated on a more generous formula than that offered to most other government workers. The "accrual rate" is much higher, and lawmakers tend to be able to retire earlier with benefits than other federal workers (as early as age 50).
Also, Members of Congress may participate in the government-wide Thrift Savings Plan, which works like a federally-managed 401 (k) salary reduction plan. FERS participants are entitled to a government match of up to five percent of salary; CSRS participants may set aside part of their own salary, but they do not receive the match.
In both cases, Members of Congress do contribute to their pension plans, although the rates are somewhat complicated by the fact that since 1983, lawmakers have been required to pay into Social Security. Members elected before 1984 must pay 8 percent of their salaries into the pension plan, but may elect a "Social Security offset" provision that allows them to split the pay-in (6.2 percent for Social Security and 1.8 percent for the pension.) The result is that upon retirement, Members receive a pension that is reduced by the amount of Social Security that is attributable to Congressional service. Members elected in 1984 and thereafter pay 1.3 percent towards the pension and 6.2 percent to Social Security. This only compensates for about 1/5 of the typical lifetime benefit. We cover the rest as taxpayers. [ASIDE: but you and I can do that ourselves. Why? Because that same Congress which give itself this perk, says we can't.]
With service of 20-25 years, a Member of Congress could retire with up to 80 percent of his or her final salary replaced. Of course, the only cap on how fast their benefits rise is the rate of increase in CPI. For this reason, Congressional pensions can and frequently do exceed a Member's final salary, but only after a few years in retirement, when COLAs begin to kick in. For example, a Member of Congress who could collect $5 million or more, if he or she retires in his/her fifties, lives until his/her eighties, and elects to leave a part of the pension benefit to a spouse, who then live 10 or more years longer. This could include George Mitchell, especially after his post-Congressional government service. With Cost of Living Adjustments, total payments over a lifetime can reach these levels (though the more typical payout is likely to be between $1 million and $2 million).
In the final analysis, Congressional pension benefits are 2-3 times more generous than what a similarly-salaried executive could expect to receive upon retiring from the private sector.
Who gave them those bennies? Why,
they did. They gave it to themselves. You may not have a problem with it, but there is no way you can convince me that you're not getting ripped off, plain and simple. Now, that may not bother you, but the problem here is that every other taxpaying member of this board is getting ripped off too, and as one of them, it bothers the heck out of me. We are about to witness tax increases, additional bailouts, and further ballooning of the federal waistline, and Congress is going to
tell (not
ask) the rest of us to pay for all of this - all while patting themselves on the back and giving themselves more money. Congressional compensation is a rip-off, and a boondoggle.
Please don't take what I've written here personally. I am just seriously ticked off by a system that perpetuates the rewarding of incompetence. It just isn't right.
“Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times.”
― G. Michael Hopf, "Those Who Remain"
#TINVOWOOT
