With economy in shambles, Congress gets a raise
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....MORE
From the D.C. Examiner:
...You senators and congressmen are in the top five percent of all U.S. wage earners. (House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is paid $217,400, while the majority and minority leaders in the Senate and House each receive $218,000.) Best of all, for them, years ago Congress rigged the process to automatically increase pay every year unless a majority specifically votes against accepting the increase. So as long as none of the congressmen raises a stink, paychecks for all 535 senators and congressmen get fatter. The rubes back home can’t protest a pay raise vote because there isn’t one. Strictly speaking, salaries aren’t based on individual merit, institutional success or the cost of living. They just keep rising, like the hot air spewed on Capitol Hill....MORE
From Rasmussen Reports:
Approval of Congress' job performance is down to single digits again for the first time since early September.
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of likely voters found that only nine percent (9%) give Congress good or excellent ratings, while 54% give the legislature poor marks. Just one-out-of-50 voters (2%) think Congress is doing an excellent job.
The last time the ratings were this low was on September 9. In late November, 12% gave Congress good or excellent ratings. This is now the fifth time congressional ratings have fallen below 10% since June 1....MORE
...In a Chicago Tribune poll, Blagojevich notched "the lowest ratings ever recorded for an elected politician in nearly three decades of Tribune polls."
The results show the state's first Democratic governor in a quarter-century has lost the confidence of voters in his own party. Moreover, the backing of one of his strongest voting blocs--African-Americans--appears to be falling away.Overall, the survey of 500 registered likely voters conducted at the end of last week showed a mere 10 percent said they wanted Blagojevich re-elected in 2010, while three-fourths said they didn't want him back for a third term.
Blagojevich's job approval rating was a dismal 13% -- five percentage points lower than that of President Bush-- and his disapproval rating was 71%....MORE
