I have a job review coming up soon. If I sit down with my employer, and he says, “Well, Duane…I have spoken with the other line supervisors and collectively, about 12% of us think you are doing a good job,” what kind of raise can I expect this year?
I wouldn’t deserve a single red cent. If only 12% of the people I work for think I am doing a good job, I should not get a raise, as I have not earned it.
However, if you were to allow the line staff to vote for their raise, regardless of how they performed, you could expect something like this:
A crumbling economy, more than 2 million constituents who have lost their jobs this year, and congressional demands of CEOs to work for free did not convince lawmakers to freeze their own pay.
Instead, they will get a $4,700 pay increase, amounting to an additional $2.5 million that taxpayers will spend on congressional salaries, and watchdog groups are not happy about it.
Well, maybe they are really struggling to get by, right? Not so much:
In the beginning days of 1789, Congress was paid only $6 a day, which would be about $75 daily by modern standards. But by 1965 members were receiving $30,000 a year, which is the modern equivalent of about $195,000.
Currently the average lawmaker makes $169,300 a year, with leadership making slightly more. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) makes $217,400, while the minority and majority leaders in the House and Senate make $188,100.
The Congress critters are making over three times what I am making, they are not doing their Constitutional duty, they are failing the American people and they vote themselves an even bigger chunk of American taxpayer money.
Maybe I should just tell my supervisor that I voted myself an automatic raise.
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