Congress gets a raise

Congress has given itself a raise.

While one could make the case that there has rarely been a time in this country when America has thought Congress deserved more money, this one is particularly disgusting (albeit not surprising at all) in its timing (read: with an economy in tatters and right before Christmas when thousands of Americans have lost their jobs).

This outgoing Congress is one of the most unpopular sessions in recent memory, which says something when you have one of the most unpopular presidents at the same time. However, they could have gone out on a powerful symbolic note by holding a vote to freeze its pay instead of allowing the automatic 2.8% increase to go into effect.

Keep this in mind the next time you see a member of Congress high up on their pedestal telling some CEO that they should take $1 in salary for the year. Perhaps, since our country is running a huge deficit and likely to only balloon further out of control, we should ask our "leadership team" to do the same.