Cheats in Congress

Trust Me, I’m Here to Help You.

“Trust me. I’m here to help you,” says the government.

If I had to choose the world's biggest lie, it would be between the previous remark and the oft used, “The check’s in the mail.”

Have you ever reached the point in a particular situation where you felt almost compelled to throw up your hands scream, “That’s it! I’ve had it! I’m washing my hands of it!”?

That’s exactly the way I feel about Congress as a collective group.

Now, I’m not ranting about the bailout any longer. It won’t do any good. I cringe when I think how it will affect my children and grandchildren, but there’s nothing I can do about it.

I’m just an average Joe Six-Pack on a fixed income dabbling in a few sidelines in an effort to bring in a little more income each month. And if you have any idea of the income of a journeyman writer, you know exactly what I meant by ‘little.’

Sometimes, I wish I had a place up at the lake where I could get up in the morning, hop in my jonboat, drop a line in the water, and let the world go to blazes.

What upsets me is that Congress is the ultimate hypocrite. Tell me this, how many of you make over $137,000.00 a year?

Well, that’s what every last member of Congress made back in 1999. Today, 2009, ten years later, they are making $174,000.00. Do the math and you’ll see that’s right at a 25% increase in salary.

How many of you had your income jump by twenty-five percent? How many of you make $174.000.00?

Years back, Congress voted itself automatic cost of living raises. So every year, they get an automatic raise.

They even got a $4,700.00 raise on January 1, 2009, while thousands upon thousands of plain old American citizens were being given pink slips.

I saw a movie where Washington’s shenanigans were called the ‘Potomac Two-Step.’ And is that appropriate.

Here’s why.

To stop the raises, Congress must vote on them. And neither party wants that to happen.

You see, such a bill must go through committee, and when it hits the committee, you might as well say ‘adios’ because that sucker will never see the light of day again.

In all fairness, some lawmakers have tried, Mitchell D-AZ, Paul R-TX, and Feingold D-WI. These decent folks have introduced bills, and all have me the same fate, merciless deaths at the hands of greedy Congresspeople who should be back in their own states sweeping garbage from the streets.

Now, if you pay attention to politics, you will learn Congress, fearful of voter reaction, did vote to decline the raise for 2010.

Don’t get excited for they specified 2010, not forever. See how sneaky they are? In 2011, they’ll be right back at it.

And these are the same hypocrites who have been lambasting CEOs over the past few months.

If Obama can freeze the seventy senior members of the White House Staff’s pay at $100,000.00, why can’t Congress follow suit? Of course, to be frank, I have reservations about anyone running a house, White or not, being paid $100,000.00.

But then, I’m just a plain old American hick down here in Texas.

But I tell what I am going to do. I’m going to find out which of my senators and representatives took the 2009 raise and campaign against them. I'll vote only for those who refused it or turned it back to the government to go against the horrendous deficit our president has created.