Blocking the Back-Door Pay Raise

By U.S. Senator Russ Feingold

As posted on Daily Kos
June 27, 2006

Something I didn't get a chance to mention on Meet the Press on Sunday is the back door pay raise for members of Congress. It may not be the biggest issue facing us as a nation, but it's something that's always bugged me, and it may come up in the Senate soon. This issue is symbolic to me of how out of touch and insulated some elected officials in Washington are from the problems that regular Americans face.

As a lot of you know, Congress has a pay raise system set up that anyone would love to have. Unless they vote to stop their own pay raise, members of Congress get it automatically, without lifting a finger. Next January, unless it is stopped, every member of Congress is scheduled to get a $3,300 pay raise.

This system is just plain wrong, and I've proposed legislation to put an end to it. I've also tried to at least put the Senate on record, forcing a roll call vote on the pay raise. In several years during the 1990s, Congress actually voted to forego the automatic pay raise, but more recently, there haven't been enough votes to block it. Last year, we actually succeeded in blocking the pay raise in the Senate, only to lose when congressional leadership stripped the provision from the final version of an appropriations bill

For myself, I only take a raise when I get reelected, because that's as close as I can get to my boss - the people of Wisconsin - telling me I'm doing a good job. It is also consistent with the 27th Amendment to the Constitution, which says: "No law, varying the compensation for the services of the senators and representatives, shall take effect, until an election of representatives shall have intervened."

Allowing automatic, stealth pay raises for members of Congress is never o.k., but especially right now, with massive deficits and the enormous cost of the Iraq war, giving ourselves a $3,300 stealth pay raise is outrageous.

How many Americans get an automatic raise, no matter how well - or how poorly - they have done their jobs? I'm not sure a lot of members of Congress are prepared for the annual review they would get right now from the American people. We've got no deadline to get the troops out of Iraq, no progress on health care reform, and no serious debate about energy independence. It's safe to say that this would be a tough year to ask for a raise. And that's the point - members of Congress don't have to ask for a raise like everyone else does. They just get a stealth, back-door pay raise instead. But that's unacceptable. If members are going to have the extraordinary power to give themselves a raise, they should have to vote on it, as a part of the public record, for everyone to see.

So look for this issue to be brought up in the Senate, and we'll see where members stand this year on the stealth pay raise, with so many hard-working people around the country - who could never hope to get an automatic raise -- watching this debate. One thing I can guarantee you is that I will keep raising this issue, as I have for so many years, because it is such a powerful reminder of our accountability to the people we serve.



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