Mobile UPI  |   About UPI  |   UPI en Español  |   UPI Arabic  |   UPIU  |   My Account
Search:
Go

Congress gets automatic pay hike

|
|
 
  
Published: Jan. 5, 2009 at 6:26 PM

WASHINGTON, Jan. 5 (UPI) -- Despite the lousy economy, high unemployment and plummeting housing prices, U.S. congressional members get a $4,700 pay raise this week.

The 2.8 percent raise of $4,700 a year will increase most salaries to $174,000 a year, the McClatchy newspaper group reported Monday.

One critic told the service Congress doesn't deserve the pay hike.

"The general public can't help but think that lawmakers are patting themselves on the back and padding their wallets for presiding over the worst fiscal-policy blunders in recent history," said Pete Sepp, National Taxpayers Union vice president for policy and communications.

Ellis said a delay in a Congress's 2009 pay raise until the recession ends or the jobless rate fell would be wise. It would demonstrate that public officials also sacrifice during times of economic difficulty, he said.

Topics: Pete Sepp
Recommended Stories
© 2009 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI's prior written consent.

Order reprints
  
Join the conversation
Most Popular Collections
The Tibetan Moniam Festival in China Super Bowl XLVI ticker tape victory parade The making of the Oscars
The Chicago Auto Show The Most Desirable Women of 2012 Tu Bishvat Migron settlement
Additional Top News Stories
1 of 21
President Obama Signs Smuggling Prevention Act at White House
View Caption
fark
Anonymous ends the week by bringing down the CIA webpage. *golf clap*
You can lead a horse to a hyperbaric chamber, but you can't make him not blow up
Man breaks into home, then vacuums and folds laundry (possibly with a menacing scowl on his face)...
It's starting to look as if the roles are now reversed - that Obama is Lucy with the football, and...
You're a female air traveler and there's no female TSA agent to screen you? No problem, there's...
Despite their efforts to convince you otherwise, many "foodies" can't, in a blind taste test, tell...