Get Real,Congress

The current salary for all Senators and Members is $169,300. The salary for the Speaker is $217,400 and the salary for the Majority and Minority Leaders is $188,100." This is a direct quote from http://clerk.house.gov/member_info/memberfaq.html

If you figure that the average worker puts in a 40 hour work week, and gets two weeks off (maybe paid, usually not; in this example: paid vacation), the pay for that person would be $81.40/hour. Are you freaking kidding me? This is unbelievealbe. Let's not forget that when they are up for a raise THEY get to decide if they deserve it. If you got say to your boss, "Hey you know, I've been here for about six months, and I believe that I deserve $81.40 per hour" Not only would you get fired, the boss would laugh his butt of as you left the office.

Congress is supposed to represent our interests, values and be "one of us". I don't know about anybody else, but I think this is a crock. People who are disabled or elderly are some of the hardest stricken by this. My mother is in her sixties and has been working an paying into Social Security (SS) since she was old enough to have SS taken out of her pay. She is college educated, so she wasn't working minimum wage jobs all her life. She now gets, what comes out to be (approximately), $3.75 per hour. She only makes that much because she gets a portion of my father's SS, as well, because of the number of years they married. Does anyone see a problem with this, besides me?

Every year people on SS get a "cost of living increase". This last raise was less than 2%. Has anyone else noticed the price of everything? Prices on just about everything has gone up, sometimes doubling or tripling what it was at this time last year. I forgot to mention, she does get help with her groceries. She gets a whopping $24 per month in food stamps. What? Seriously, twenty-four dollars is supposed to ease her financial burden. Did any of you know that the some poorest people in this nation (the elderly and disabled) were not even initially considered for the Stimulus Package? The people who could probably use it the most, just glossed over like so many other times. 

I would offer the following challenge to the members of Congress:

Live in government subsidized housing, give them the maximum amout of food stamps for their family size, and pay them minimum wage. Give them a shuttle bus to ride back and forth to work. Get to the bus stop on time or WALK. That's what we do. 

I challenge that Congress do this for about six months. Now, this a reality show I would watch, and TiVo. C-SPAN'S ratings would go throught the roof. C'mon who wouldn't want see Nancy Pelosi's as she walks out of SuperCuts (new do) carrying her Mickey D's cup of coffee (Careful, Nance, hot liquid in that cup.), and trying to catch the bus (run, Nancy, run).

My point, is this, Congress is paid far too much money to be a representation of the average American. Hard working people toil day in and day out to pay the rising gas prices (so we can get to work), to try and keep food on the tables of the homes we are trying desperately not to lose, and give our children (and sometimes elderly parents) health care and the basics of life.