It's that time of year again: for the cost-of-living
adjustment for the House and Senate and Supreme Court
Justices. Every year Congress is given an automatic 2.7
percent raise, unless there is a proposal passed to have
a collective vote to rescind it.
Before 1989, Congressional pay raises were debated.
No kidding. Congressional Committees held public
hearings and open floor debates with every member of
Congress standing up and publicly voting for more money.
The media took great pleasure in these debates. Then
lawmakers grew weary of taxpayers monitoring when they
got a raise.
In 1989, lawmakers thought an automatic cost of
living allowance would be great and inserted it the
appropriations bill for the Treasury Department. No more
pubic brouhaha. No more justification of how well
Congress was doing its job. Leave such distasteful
arguments to the little people.
Since COLA was enacted, lawmakers have taken raises
seven times. The last one, in 2002, gave them a $5,000
boost.
This year, Democratic Rep. Jim Matheson of Utah
brought up the pay raise for discussion and was soundly
defeated. Considering this is a mid-term re-election
year, I thought Congress might forego the raise to show
it supports fiscal responsibility, possibly
acknowledging the drastic budget cuts that the middle
class and poor have endured at their hands, and
demonstrate that everyone should make a sacrifice.
Boy, was I dreaming.
The 2.7 percent raise works out to $1.71 an hour,
based on a 40-hour work week. But the impact of other
congressional perks makes this raise greedy. I doubt
anyone in Congress can say he or she lives on his or her
salary alone, considering members of Congress are given
allowances for their staff members, receive generous
health and retirement benefits that never expire and
housing allowances and other invisible bonuses that
mainstream America will never hear about.
For the other recipients of COLAs, such as people on
Social Security, civil servants and military personnel,
COLA raises still don't make for a decent living wage.
In fact, if you subtract the raise in Medicare premiums,
the new Part D prescription medication program and the
restructuring of qualifications for Medicaid, anyone
receiving federal wages or benefits is worse off now
than he or she was five years ago.
Then there is the federal minimum wage, frozen at
$5.15 an hour. Today's minimum wage buys less than the
minimum wage of 1968. If Congress applied the rules of
COLA to the federal minimum wage, workers would be
earning $7.50 an hour.
With cuts in entitlement programs, higher taxes for
the working class and the poor and the danger of
Medicare and Social Security programs going broke, a pay
raise for Congress is another raspberry blown at the
face of America.
Congress should be worried their COLAs will give the
voters another reason to vote them out of office.
Instead, they're taking the Alfred E. Neuman approach.
McKee, a wheelchair user, is a freelance writer
and producer. You can e-mail her at chairgrrl@chairgrrl.com.
