Congress shouldn’t get a raise
Congress is in line for pay raise — again. Yet the minimum wage will likely stay the same for the fifth straight year. The hypocrisy is stifling.
COMMENTARY
Brandon Ortiz

Congress is in line for pay raise — again. Yet the minimum wage will likely stay the same for the fifth straight year. The hypocrisy is stifling.

If you work and do a good job, you are entitled to a raise. Or at the very least, an annual cost of living adjustment. That’s as American as apple pie.

But what if you aren’t doing a good job, and you get a raise anyway? Or vice versa. Or what if the cost of living increase really amounts to a pretty lofty raise over time? Such are the questions that should frame the debate over congressional pay.

Despite a budget deficit, a potential double-dip recession and partisan gridlock, Congress is in line for little more than a 3 percent pay raise — boosting pay to $155,000 from $150,000 for rank-and-file members.

Since 1989, “cost of living” adjustments have been automatic annually unless Congress votes to reject them, which it did four times in the 1990s.

The issue isn’t whether Congress deserves a cost of living increase in normal times. Congress, like every American, most certainly does. But they should hold back when the country is hurting, especially during a deficit.

Political science chairman Jim Riddlesperger said it’s tough for senators and representatives to increase their pay. Not only is it unpopular with voters, he said, but challengers demagogue the issue in campaigns.

“I frankly wish it wouldn’t be an issue,” Riddlesperger said. “What do we pay members of organizations for administrating a $1.8 trillion budget? I don’t think comparisons are appropriate.

“It is unarguably the case with the salaries of congressmen. They are so woefully underpaid one could make the argument that their salaries should be doubled.” Riddlesperger, for the record, said he isn’t making that particular argument. But his point is still the same.

That’s unabashedly idealistic.

The reality is that not every American gets a raise every year, especially these days. Actually, many people are taking pay cuts — if they have a job at all. According to a new report by the Census Bureau, the median household income declined 2.2 percent in 2001, from $43,162 to $42,228. The poverty rate rose to 11.7 percent from 11.3 percent.

For no fault of its own, the public is having to cut back.

It is unfair to criticize congress for declining wages. The free market has jurisdiction over that. But Congress does set the minimum wage.

Since the Reagan revolution, Congress has been reluctant to increase the minimum wage. And, in fact, it has effectively decreased. It’s $5.15 an hour, but to have the same purchasing power it did in 1968, it would have to be $7.50 an hour.

Compare that to the salaries of members of Congress whose wages have risen from $60,662 in 1979 to $150,000 today, a 147 percent increase.

Are congressmen and congresswomen underpaid? Yes. But so are teachers, fire fighters and anybody making the minimum wage. You are probably underpaid, too.

That’s life.

Members of Congress already make almost more than four times what the average family brings home, not counting other benefits such as health and life insurance (something more and more people do not have), a good pension (which is also lacking) and other perks.

Congress deserves a raise in normal times, just like everyone else. But now is not the time.

Editor in Chief Brandon Ortiz is a junior news-editorial journalism major from Fort Worth.