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Blogfest 2005 - Mar 8, 2005 - Printable Version
- The Poor get Poorer.....
by Mark Faulk
It's official. The Republicans in Congress don't give a damn about helping America, or Americans. For all they care, you and I could live in poverty for the rest of our lives. Yesterday, they voted down not one, but two proposals to raise the minimum wage, which has been stuck at "just enough to starve on" since 1996. That's right, it wasn't enough just to vote it down once, they had to make their point more emphatically by saying to Americans, "you're not worth $7.25 an hour, in fact, you won't be worth that in 2006". Nope, they had to give the knife a few extra twists by voting down a second proposal, in effect adding, "Hell, you're not even worth $6.25 an hour." As always, Republican leaders espoused the usual party-line excuse about raising the minimum wage being bad for "small businesses", a claim that they have never backed up with actual evidence. On the contrary, 12 states have passed minimum wage laws that make the minimum wage is those states higher than the national minimum wage, and statistics show that there has been no adverse effect on small businesses in the affected states. Make no mistake about it, this isn't about small business, it's about BIG business, and lining the pockets of the already filthy rich CEOs and owners of the WalMarts and the McDonalds of the world.
Now, granted, it's not that hard to get by on a Congressman's annual salary of $158,103, and the Congressional "leaders" earn up to $203,000 a year. To put that in perspective, let's pretend that they actually work 40 hours a week every week of the year (key word: "pretend"). Even if they did (remember, we're pretending), they would still be earning....well, not actually "earning", maybe "getting paid" would be more accurate....$76.01 per hour, or almost 15 times the current minimum wage. Of course, that doesn't include those generous expense accounts, travel expenses, and all those little "lobbyist perks" that line their pockets, OR the fact that a good portion of them are already millionaires to begin with, but we'll pretend (there we go, pretending again) that they actually have to get by in the real world on their modest little paychecks, just like the rest of us. How many of your friends make $76.00 an hour? None? Mine, either.
The fact is, Congress hasn't raised the minimum wage since 1996, while inflation has risen by over 20%. In stark contrast to that fact, Congress has voted themselves a total of $16,700 in raises in just the past six years, and their salary has increased $60,000 since 1990. Again, let's put that in perspective: THEIR PAY RAISES ALONE OVER THE PAST 15 YEARS AMOUNTS TO ALMOST SIX TIMES WHAT A WORKING AMERICAN ON MINIMUM WAGE EARNS.
In a statement released after Congress gave themselves yet another pay raise last year, Tom Schatz, president of the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste, put it this way: "Members of Congress have the only job in the country whose occupants can set their own salary without regard to performance, profit, or economic climate. Clearly, members must think that money grows on trees. With a $480 billion deficit, the escalating cost of the war in Iraq, and a stagnant economy, Congress should be curbing spending, not lining their pockets at our expense."
And guess what? While Americans scrape by, losing more and more benefits every year (Remember the per child tax deduction those of us who made under $20,000 used to get? They took that away from us at the same time they were giving a massive tax break to the rich.), and hoping that our Republican-controlled Congress will toss up some kind of bone in the form of a meager minimum wage increase, their pay raises are automatic! They actually have to vote to TURN DOWN their pay raise (which was a not too shabby $3,400 last year), and they haven't done that in the past six years.
Another quote from Tom Schatz: "This underserved pay raise is no surprise, as the 108th Congress has shown a voracious appetite for spending. It goes to show how out of touch with reality politicians can be. They forget that their salaries are paid by taxpayers. Americans are being forced to tighten their belts—if they even have a job—yet members of Congress will have an extra $3,400 to do with as they please."
Are you pissed off yet? No? Well, try this one on for size: While Bush and his cohorts are trying to REDUCE your social security benefits, raise the retirement age, and pump your retirement money into a corrupt stock market, members of Congress enjoy a retirement package (courtesy of you and I, the taxpayers) that takes effect as early as the age of fifty, and they "earn" (sorry, that word is really taking a beating here) an average of almost $4,000 a month for life. And that doesn't even include THEIR social security benefits, the lucrative "consultant" and lobbyists jobs waiting for most of them after they leave Congress, or, once again, the fact that a large percentage of them are already millionaires, and don't need the money anyway.
And lest you think I'm being partisan by singling out Republicans in this article, take a look at this: In the vote to raise the minimum wage to $7.25 per hour, EVERY VOTE opposing the measure was cast by Republicans. I repeat....It's official. Republicans don't give a damn about helping America, or Americans. And that, fellow wage earners, is the faulking truth.
Read more about how Congress is giving the shaft to working class Americans while they themselves live in luxury:
"Senate defeats minimum-wage plans"
http://www.cnn.com/2005/ALLPOLITICS/03/05/minimum.wage.ap/
"Salary will jump by $3,400 a year in 2004"
http://usgovinfo.about.com/cs/agencies/a/raise4congress.htm
"Salaries and Benefits of U.S. Congress Members"
http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/weekly/aa031200a.htm
"Minimum Wage and Its Effects on Small Business"
http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/webfeatures_viewpoints_raising_minimum_wage_2004
"40 millionaires in US Senate"
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/jul2003/sen-j07.shtml
(Editor's note: This is an entry from The Faulking Truth blog, ingeniously entitled "Blogfest 2005". If you'd like to waste more of your valuable time blogging, go to www.faulkingtruth.com/blog/ )
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