What you paid
Last week, taxpayers spent roughly $107 million on Congress.
Salaries of Members of Congress and their allowances/week:
Speaker of the House: $223,500/52 = $4,299
House and Senate Majority and Minority Leaders: ($193,400/52) x 4 = $14,877
Other Representatives and Senators: ($174,000/52) x 530 = $1,773,462
Allowance for staff salaries and misc: ($1,500,000/52) x 535 = $15,432,692
Non-salary money allocated for Congress: $4.656 billion/52 = $89,538,462
What you got
The House briefly came back from its nearly six-week long “August Recess” to pass a $26 billion bailout bill for the states.
The Senate was in recess last week.
We have NEVER gotten our money’s worth from Congress! They bleed us dry to pay for their pet projects and line the pockets of their friends and themselves. They believe they answer to no one while they are in Washington, DC. I am particularly outraged that they are given free bennies for LIFE for having been sent to Congress for any length of time–even ones who are convicted of crimes and thrown out!
No politician should recieve the kind of pay or lifetime benefits that are currently being paid. If a ploitician truley has America’s best interest in mind; then pay wouldn’t be the determining factor in their decision to run and stay in office for a lifetime. A sincere desire to do best for the country is all that would be needed. So I say, boot them all, cut the pay and let those who are in it for the betterment of our country and not the money/power, try to run things. The politicians are worse than these banks etc that just burned the American people. At least they admit they are out for the almighty dollar.
I am so sick and tired of our elected officials and how they waste out money, that they can rest assured, not one incumbent in Washington, or Charleston, WV will get my vote in November.