Unwicked

This story at McClatchy caught my eye today.

Do you think the Congress should accept a pay raise? They are due to receive a cost-of-living increase that would amount to $4,400.00 annually. Members of the Congress vowed not to accept a pay raise if they failed to increase the minimum wage. Well, they did increase the minimum wage. Congrats.

Can you think of one reason why a pay raise should be considered for members of Congress?

Some tidbits from the story:

After raising the minimum wage by 70 cents an hour this week, many members of Congress are ready to give themselves a pay increase of roughly $4,400 per year.

That would take their annual salaries to nearly $170,000.

Congress approved the law making its pay raises automatic in 1989, giving legislators an easy way to avoid tough votes that could hurt them during re-election campaigns. Since then, congressional salaries have nearly doubled, from $89,500 to $165,200 a year.

Republican Rep. Roy Blunt of Missouri, the House minority whip, said most Republicans — “with great discipline” — have resisted using the words “pay raise,” instead preferring to call the increase a cost-of-living allowance.

“Every member has some obligation to the institution for the compensation to, as much as possible, keep pace with inflation,” he said. “I think this should be as good a job when I leave it as it was when I took it.”

Rep. Lee Terry, a Nebraska Republican, said congressional popularity is at an all-time low because “viciousness and the partisanship are probably at an all-time record high.” He noted that only two of the first 60 bills the House passed this year were signed into law.

“If we were on a baseball team and we hit two out of 60 . . . we would be sent down to single A ball for such a pathetic percentage,” he said. “So we are not performing well enough to deserve it.”

Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Democrat, said she’d back a similar measure in the Senate.

“I don’t think Congress should get a raise,” she said. “I think it would be a nice thing to tell the American people that we could go a couple years without a raise.”

If the House and Senate allow themselves this pay raise, U.S. taxpayers should take that as a direct kick in the teeth because it is a kick in the teeth.