If you’ve been worried about what will happen to those poor folks in Congress once the tax increases hit, worry no more: they’re getting a raise!
Yes, despite the fact that the current Congress is one of the most ineffectual in recent memory, President Obama signed an executive order boosting their pay after March 27. I guess that assumes we haven’t run out of money since Secretary Geithner has indicated a few days ago that we only have about two months of headroom in 2013 (assuming we take some drastic measures).
And since, by law, Congress can’t get more of a raise than federal workers, those folks are getting one, too (that sound you hear is the rearranging of deck chairs). Assuming $152,625,000,000 in annual pay to federal workers (2,035,000 federal employees making an average of close to $75,000 – not including benefits which would have bumped the figure to more than $100,000), that works out to a planned increase of $763,125,000.
How much will the Congressional raise cost us? The bump is .5% which means that the average Congressional official making $174,000 per year will see an extra $900 in their 2013 paycheck. At 535 members of Congress, that works out to just under $500,000 (with a little cushion room for Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH), Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) all of whom get more than the average and thus, will get a bigger raise than $900 for the year).
We won’t miss a half-million dollars in a $3 trillion budget, right?
Besides, Congress has been vacationing and recessing pretty hard this year. Consider this: the seven-week break for the elections? The one that followed Congress’ five-week summer break? At $3,480 per week for seven weeks, taxpayers paid $13,032,600 for just one recess, not including staff and benefits. The five-week summer break tacked on another $9,390,000. So we paid more than $20,000,000 for Congress not to work for most of the summer and fall, not including federal holidays and the like. What’s an extra half-million?
Cause that’s the way it works at your place of employment, right? You get nothing done, take lots of vacation, leave work early and you get a raise?
I thought so.
(H/T: @WarrenG1006)
