Congress gives itself a raise, part 2

While we are all struggling economically, Congress decides its worthy of a pay raise. What crap.

CCAGW OPPOSES CONGRESSIONAL PAY RAISE

'The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW) today urged lawmakers to make their first order of business when they reconvene in the nation’s capitol in January to introduce legislation to freeze congressional salaries at current rates. All Members of Congress are slated to get an automatic pay raise in January, 2009 unless they vote to block it. Each rank and file member of Congress is poised to see another $4,700 in his or her paycheck over the next year, an increase of 2.8 percent over their current $169,300 annual salary.

“Members of Congress don’t deserve one additional dime of taxpayer money in 2009,” said CCAGW President Tom Schatz. “While thousands of Americans are facing layoffs and downsizing, Congress should be mortified to accept a raise. They failed to pass most of their appropriations bills, the deficit is on pace to reach an unprecedented $1 trillion, and the national debt stands at $10 trillion. In addition, this Congress has been ethically challenged, plagued with corruption allegations, convictions, and sex scandals.”

“House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) probably rues the day she so blithely promised that Democrats would ‘lead the most honest, most open and most ethical Congress in history.’ Instead, there has been a relentless degradation of the ethics rules. While Congress has sat in judgment of everyone from oil company executives and financial services industry executives to domestic automaker CEOs, it has failed spectacularly to police itself.”

In a sad continuation of the unprincipled character of the 109th Congress, the 110th has also been riddled with examples of malfeasance. Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) faces years in jail for his conviction on seven counts of failing to report more than $250,000 in improper gifts he received from 1999 to 2006. Alaska Rep. Don Young (R) reportedly has spent $1 million on defense attorneys related to a federal investigation into allegations of bribery. There are two investigations underway of House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) over alleged tax improprieties. Former Rep. William Jefferson (D-La.) has been indicted and is awaiting trial on alleged bribery charges. The Senate Ethics Committee is looking at both Sens. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) and Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) over sweetheart mortgage deals they may have received from Countrywide Financial. Rep. Vito Fosella (R-N.Y.) was convicted of drunk driving. And there have been a number of inappropriate sexual peccadillos surrounding Sens. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) and David Vitter (R-La.), and Rep. Tim Mahoney (D-Fla.).

“If Congressional leaders believe that the taxpayers should gives pay raises to this rogue’s gallery of ineptitude and venality, they ought to step away from the spiked egg nog,” concluded Schatz.'

Politics at its finest

The way many members of both political parties try to ram legislation through Congress is impressive. Much of it is done so we don't notice. Dianne Feinstein (Commie) and Larry Craig (Pinko) appear to be adding an immigration amendment to the Iraq funding bill. Why?? Because they know that Bush won't veto the bill, even with the unrelated amendment in it, since a veto would look bad for Bush's war in Iraq.

A few quotes from transcripts of the Lou Dobbs show on May 16: "This meeting yesterday at the Senate Appropriations Committee convened to vote on funding U.S. spending in Iraq. But late in the day 100 pages were added to the bill that would make an estimated three million people illegal alien farm workers and their families eligible to work in the United States and it passed 17 to 12.

Pro-amnesty senators tonight making a new effort to ram their open border's agenda down the throats of the American people, now let's go back to June 28, 2007 when the American people made their views known to the United States Senate and the closer vote failed. It was very clear at that point what the will of the majority in this country was, but now two senators, suddenly have added an amendment that would provide amnesty for illegal alien farm workers in this country, they and their family amounting to some three million people. And they're putting this little number into a bill funding the war in Iraq. You're not supposed to notice. We're not supposed to notice. And the American people are not supposed to notice. These two senators added the amendment in the dark of night, and they did so without debate. They're duplicitous, deceitful, and absolutely dishonorable in doing so (emphasis mine)."

Also from Lou Dobbs: SEN. JEFF SESSIONS, (R), ALABAMA: Why would they stick it on a war supplemental? That is a deliberate attempt to bypass scrutiny and to see if they can slide it through without the American people realizing what's happening, on a bill that we really need to pass."

That is an excellent question, why don't these two fine Senators (one from each party) work up a single bill with total transparency which deals with only the immigration issue??

I'm not saying that I am for or against the war in Iraq. But if Congress really wanted to stop the war in Iraq, they could do it. But why stop the war when they can use the war in Iraq to their advantage?

More on the issue at TheHill.com: Senate panel approves Iraq funding bill: "Republicans say Democrats are putting troops at risk by loading up the supplemental, which Appropriations Committee Chairman Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) characterized as 'horse-blank.'

'What hogwash. Let’s all have a big laugh,' he said before mockingly laughing out loud.

'By the end of 2008, the war in Iraq will have cost over $600 billion,' the 90-year-old Byrd said in a scathing 30-minute opening statement. 'More than $600 billion dollars for every minute since our lord Jesus Christ was born. That’s a staggering figure.'

A number of Republicans have joined Democrats in pushing to beef up the domestic spending in the supplemental measure, recognizing that the must-pass bill remains one of the few pieces of legislation likely to become law before November’s elections."

How in the world could anyone stand to listen to Robert KKK Byrd about anything for 30 minutes?! While the claims that these unrelated amendments are "putting troops at risk" are debateable, people from both paties are playing dirty Congressional politics.

Each of these issues should be voted on in separate bills with total transparency to the American people. Congress is screwing all of us.