1115.org

Just as they have each year since 1990, the U.S. House of Representatives approved a pay raise for themselves:

The House on Tuesday agreed to a $3,100 pay raise for Congress next year,to $165,200, after defeating an effort to roll it back.

Compared to what most of them could be making in the private sector, and considering that the total impact of the raise for the 535 members amounts to less than $2 million, efforts to paint these elected officials as fat cats who are screwing over the country are a bit extreme.

But.

When the single most corrupt one in the bunch says something like this…:

“It’s not a pay raise,” said House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas. “It’s an adjustment so that they’re not losing their purchasing power.”

…it crosses the line. As we mentioned recently, the purchasing power of the minimum wage has eroded 26% since 1979. Even Americans who make more than the minimum wage haven’t been seeing many raises lately, and thanks to climbing gas prices they are feeling the pinch as well.

The President and his fellow Republicans love to point out that not enacting or not extending tax cuts is the same thing as raising taxes. Statements like this from DeLay strip away the semantics and prove that they are having it both ways. That’s not going to last, and it helps to have it in print.

Especially from someone under ethics and legal suspicion for massive corruption that entails millions of dollars. Keep it up buddy.