As Ben so aptly said , I really don't give a shit about their paltry salaries, I know a lot of people who make more than the president(well more than he is supposed to at least). I care a lot more about the countless billions of our dollars that they waste, steal,or just plain fucking can't account for.
Maybe, just like teachers, we should pay them more, let them serve one or at most two terms, and let them get back to the real world. Maybe we would get competent people instead of another generation of politicians sucking at the taxpayer's teat. Yeah right,no fucking chance of that happening.
The Federal Register recently published the 2008 federal pay scales. They are: House/Senate:$169,300...House/Senate majority/minority leaders:$188,100...Senate President pro-tem, R.Byrd:$188,100...Speaker of the House, N.Pelosi:$217,400...Supreme Court Justices:$208,100...Chief Justice Sup Court:$217,400...Vice Pres:$221,100...Pres:$400,000. Pres, and Vice Pres salary is frozen by law, until new law is passed by Congress. But the sitting Potus and VP don't get it. The next administration gets the raise. Congress, on the otherhand, gets a raise every year and they don't have to vote on it. In 1992, the cost to the taxpayers to fund a freshman congressman, including staff, travel, healthcare, perquisites, etc., was $500,000. Lord knows what it is today. Imagine, if you will, what it costs to keep Teddy Kennedy in place.
Too bad they don't have standard Social Security for their retirement. It would be set on a course to solvency overnight.
RWU: Do you remember the State of the Union address a few years ago by GWB when he remarked that he was unable to get anything done on social security because of partisan opposition from the democrats? To a person, the left side of the aisle stood up and applauded for a good 2 minutes. Made me want to drop a precision guided bomb on that side. If I had been able to take .04% of my social security taxes and invest it privately from my day one of working, I'd be a millionare by now. And it would be MY money to do with whatever I choose. What the assholes don't inderstand is that the govt would have gotten MORE taxes from me on capital gains, interest, dividends, etc., on my .04% investments. We are well and truly fucked.
I agree completely. Social Security was one of the great frauds perpretrated upon the American people thanks to FDR when he was trying to emulate his mentor and buddy, Joseph Stalin. I have been working for 55 years and had the government not screwed me out of half or more of what I earn so they could buy votes with it I am confident I could put my feet up and enjoy life after a few more years of the salt mine. The Dirty Bastards.
Harry, you got that shit 100% right!!!We now have to work until the first week of June just to pay all the taxes we "owe". I've only been working for 50 years, but I know how you feel. Just finished going through an IRS audit for 2004, and had to pay an additional $6,755.25 to the pricks. Now they are after me for a 2005 tax year audit. Tax laws are so fucked up that the assholes in Congress that wrote the tax laws don't even know what's up. They have a "Tax Prep Office" that does their taxes for free. And talk about waste. How much do you think the Boeing 757 that Pelosi uses costs the taxpayers? She wouldn't accept a Gulfstream G5 as it was 'too small for her entourage'. They all need to be taken out behind the tool shed and have some sense beat into them.
I was behind GWB 100%. I contribute close to $15,000 a year to a program that I'll never recieve a cent back from.You're right "The Dirty Bastards"
their salaries should be much higher, and their terms should be much shorter, IMHO. Then we might get some QUALITY business managers in office that would handle the actual problems of this country without always pandering to the welfare class by signing every fucking entitlment increase that comes down the pipe just to secure the votes for the next election... We are FUCKED, and the men and women of congress are fucking us with out own tax dollars!
Ah, yes, Teddy (Fat Bastard) Kennedy the conscience of the country. "Whine em, Dine em, and Dunk em", surely is a true hero. Makes me feel good every day going to work and sending half of what I sweat for to the government to support ilk like that all the well knowing that sonofabitch is voting on more laws to diminish my liberty and take my money.
I wish I could write my own raise.
As Ben so aptly said , I really don't give a shit about their paltry salaries, I know a lot of people who make more than the president(well more than he is supposed to at least). I care a lot more about the countless billions of our dollars that they waste, steal,or just plain fucking can't account for.
Maybe, just like teachers, we should pay them more, let them serve one or at most two terms, and let them get back to the real world. Maybe we would get competent people instead of another generation of politicians sucking at the taxpayer's teat. Yeah right,no fucking chance of that happening.
He's saying that he's going to remove earmarks from bills!
I didn't know this, but earmarks are not really part of the bill itself. Legally speaking, they aren't passed by Congress. They are added in sort of a addendum in conference committee.
If Bush does this, I'd say he's finally performing a public service. Again, I have to take note that he's a better president without Carl Rove.
It might mean that his major problem has been in choosing the wrong people.
The only way he can remove earmarks is to veto the bill completely. There is no line item veto at the federal level. Earmarks are most definitely passed by Congress. After a bill is reconciled in a conference committee it goes back to the House and Senate for final approval, earmarks or not.
Salaries may not be outrageous, but all the bullshit bennies they get certainly are. e.g., for a congressman that serves one 2 year term in the House and doesn't get reelected, he 'retires' at 100% salary pension and gets fully paid healthcare for life. While serving, they get paid travel to and from their home state to DC, a paid staff, paid postage priveliges, housing allowances, paid junkets or fact finding trips if you will, on which they can take their wives, and any of that money they don't spend, they can take with them when they leave office. R. Byrd, Dem, WV, has an estimated $7,500,000 in his pension fund. Do you have a plan like that? I certainly don't.
7.5 million after fifty years doesn't seem that unreasonable to me.CEO's of major companies make that in asingle year. I think you are going to have to find a better example if you want to outrage anyone. Anyone who can't accumlulate 7.5 million dollars after fifty years in a white collar job with a law degree would have to be a moron.
The fact that he's still in office after fifty years is a lot more outrageous than the fact that he has socked away a few million after half a century in office.
Moron is a pretty apt description of Sen Byrd. Granted, he knows the constitution backwards and forwards, and the ins and outs of the political system. But, after 50 years, would you expect less? Comparing politicians' pensions to CEO's pensions is inappropriate. CEO's pensions come from stock options, company profits, etc..Corporations are "for profit". Politicians pensions come from the sweat of the taxpayers labors. Government is definitely 'not for profit'. It galls me to no end that they are elected to serve their constituents, yet the day after they are sworn in, they start serving only themselves. Term limits should not be only for the President, it should be for all. Oh, yeah, why is it that 90% of politicians are lawyers? Shakespeare had it right, "We should kill all the lawyers first".