Pay raise for Congress

Dispite the fact that hundreds of thousands of jobs are being lost every month, and dispite the millions of foreclosures and pending foreclosures, dispite the caps they themselves are imposing on the salaries of others, dispites the doom and gloom outlook that the President is exuding to the American (and international) public, Congress voted to allow the automatic annual 2.8% pay increase to remain in the $410 BILLION omnibus spending bill. They could have chosen to not take the increase. But do you think they would do that? NO WAY!!!!! Well some voted against the raise.

What does that mean? Let's do the math.

Congressional members made $169,300 as of January 1, 2008.
The automatic pay raise of 2.8% for 2009 would mean a $4740.40 increase bringing the total to $174,040.40.
Now multiply that by the number of congress members. According to Wikipedia there are 535 members of congress. So 535 x 4740.40 = $2,536,114 additional funds needed to pay congress. The total bill just for salaries is then $93,111,614.
So the $2.5 million doesn't seem that big when comparing that to the $410 BILLION of the spending bill but that is the mentality that gets us to the point where we are in debt so badly. A million here, a couple million there ADD UP.

Do you get a 2.8% AUTOMATIC payraise this year? Would your company just fork over the money if all your coworkers voted to raise their own pay? Didn't think so. The real world doesn't work like that.

Oh yeah, and how much does the average American make? In 2007, the median annual household income rose 1.3% to $50,233.00 according to the Census Bureau. So your congress members alone make more than 3 times the national HOUSEHOLD average.