Pay raises for Congress
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The U.S. Congress today, in effect, voted itself a pay raise. Well, sort of. The rule now is they get the raise automatically unless they vote not to accept it. They turned aside an attempt to do just that today. That gives them another $3,300 for a total of $168,500 annual salary.
Naturally, the House makes it very tough for the average Joe to find the legislation and roll call vote. I went to the House site and couldn't find anything in English that said "pay raise." So I checked the vote on AP and found it was 249-167. I went back to the House site and did the old CTL-F on 249-167 and found this:
Providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 5576) making appropriations for the Departments of Transportation, Treasury, and Housing and Urban Development, the Judiciary, District of Columbia, and independent agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2007, and for other purposes
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Right, of course. Congressional pay raise. It's all right there in the description under "for other purposes." What's the matter with me?
So let's go down the list district by district.
District 1: Gil Gutknecht --
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District 2: John Kline -
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District 3: Jim Ramstad -
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District 4: Betty McCollum -
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District 5: Martin Sabo -
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District 6: Mark Kennedy -
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District 7: Collin Peterson -
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District 8: Jim Oberstar -
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Two Republicans voted to take the money. Two voted no. Two Democrats voted to take the money. Two Democrats voted no.
Who says the era of bipartisanship is over?
Challengers: you're on your own to crank out the press releases on this one. The Republicans and DFL parties won't be touching it.
