posted on June 27, 2007 08:20:55 PM new
Besides continuing to speak of raising our taxes....the spending they continue to do....the dem controlled House now wants a RAISE.
They just aren't hearing the voters saying they're NOT getting any thing accomplished.
So out of touch with reality .
Hope the voters remember THIS in '08.
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Today: June 27, 2007 at 18:20:3 PDT
House Votes to Accept $4,400 Pay Raise
By ANDREW TAYLOR
Associated Press Writer
House Votes to Accept $4,400 Pay Raise
WASHINGTON (AP) - Despite record-low approval ratings, House lawmakers Wednesday voted to accept an approximately $4,400 pay raise that will increase their salaries to almost $170,000.
The cost-of-living raise gets lawmakers back on track for automatic pay raises after a fight between Democrats and Republicans last year and again in January killed the pay hike due this year. That was the first interruption of the annual congressional pay hike in seven years.
The blowup came after Democrats last year fulfilled a campaign promise to deny themselves a pay hike until Congress raised the minimum wage. Delays in the minimum wage bill cost every lawmaker about $3,100 this year.
On a 244-181 vote Wednesday, Democrats and Republicans alike killed a bid by Reps. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, and Lee Terry, R-Neb., to get a direct vote to block the COLA, which is automatically awarded unless lawmakers vote to block it. The Senate has not indicated when it will deal with a similar measure.
As part of an ethics reform bill in 1989, Congress gave up its ability to accept pay for speeches and made annual cost-of-living pay increases automatic unless the lawmakers voted otherwise.
In the early days of GOP control of Congress, lawmakers routinely denied themselves the annual COLA.
Under the annual COLA, lawmakers automatically get a pay hike unless Congress votes to block it. Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., and Minority Whip Roy Blunt, R-Mo., worked to smooth the way for the pay hike.
Typically, the annual vote on the pay hike comes on an obscure procedural move - instead of a direct up-or-down vote - and the Democratic and GOP whips each delivered a roughly equal number of votes to shut off any move to block the pay hike.
This year's vote was made ticklish by last year's battle. Republicans said Democrats broke a promise not to use the pay raise issue against GOP lawmakers in campaign ads and were, generally speaking, more reluctant to supply votes.
Hoyer and Blunt worked the floor during the vote to make sure there was relative balance between the warring parties in delivering votes. Working through Blunt, Hoyer forced more than a dozen Republicans to switch their votes in support of accepting the raise, including Mike Pence and Daniel Burton of Indiana and Fred Upton, Dave Camp and Vernon Ehlers of Michigan.
Finally, moments after signaling with three fingers a demand for a few more GOP votes, Hoyer drew his finger across his throat as a signal for Rep. Earl Pomeroy, D-N.D., to gavel the tally to a close.
Most members support the pay raise as a means of retaining experienced lawmakers and of making sure that Congress is not simply dominated by wealthy people. Many lawmakers maintain homes both in the expensive Washington housing market and back in their districts. On most days, they meet with lobbyists making far more than they do.
"Every member has some obligation to the institution for the compensation to, as much as possible, keep pace with inflation," Blunt told reporters Wednesday. "I think this should be as good of a job when I leave it as it was when I took it."
"I don't think this is the right time for members of Congress to be allowing the pay raise to go through without even an up-or-down vote," said Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah. "We need to show the American people we are willing to make some sacrifices ... that we recognize there's a struggle for some in today's economy."
The exact figure for this year's COLA has not been settled under a complicated formula that awards lawmakers a smaller pay hike than civil servants. But opponents of the congressional COLA estimated a pay hike this year of 2.7 percent, or $4,460.
Both House members and senators presently make $165,200 a year, with a handful of leaders such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., earning more.
The pay raise would also apply to the vice president - who is president of the Senate - congressional leaders and Supreme Court justices.
This year, Vice President Dick Cheney, Pelosi and Chief Justice John Roberts receive $212,100. Associate justices receive $203,000. House and Senate party leaders get $183,500.
President Bush's salary of $400,000 is unaffected by the legislation.
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"While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation": "What would a Democrat president have done at that point?"
"Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack."
posted on June 28, 2007 04:03:17 PM new
More reason for the democratic controlled congress to get such low ratings from the voters.
They're doing nothing but wasting out tax dollars playing these GAMES that are ONLY to gain press releases.
And some thing these wackos would be good leaders? OMG. WAKE UP
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House Rejects Proposal to Defund Cheney
Jun 28, 6:39 PM (ET)
By JIM ABRAMS
WASHINGTON (AP) - Vice President Dick Cheney won't lose his home, his office and his entertainment expense account after all.
[MY note: Gosh...I'm sure he was just SO worried about this craziness being passed. What fools the liberals make of themselves...over and over and over again.]
LOL LOL LOL
The House on Thursday rejected an attempt to eliminate the vice president's executive office budget, a move that Democrats tied to Cheney's assertion that his office didn't need to comply with national security disclosure rules required of other executive branch agencies.
Republicans denounced the proposal as political theater.
[MY note: The ADULTS reigning in the children]
The vote, on an amendment to a 2008 spending bill for the Treasury Department and executive branch agencies, was defeated 217-209.
"We are pleased to see a bipartisan majority reject this political stunt," said Cheney spokeswoman Megan McGinn.
Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., author of the amendment, said it was the logical outgrowth of the vice president's claim that his office was outside the scope of rules imposed on other executive offices.
"Perhaps the vice president thought he occupied an undisclosed fourth branch of government," Emmanuel said.
The proposal would have withheld about $4.8 million in the budget for the vice president's official residence, his office and for other expenses including the hiring of passenger vehicles and entertainment expenses. He would still have received a smaller budget for his role as president of the Senate.
The latest dispute between the Democratic Congress demanding information from the White House and a vice president with a penchant for secrecy came when Cheney said his office was exempt from sections of a presidential order that executive branch offices provide data on how much material they classify and declassify.
Cheney's office, with backing from the White House, argued that the offices of the president and vice president were exempt from the order because they are not executive branch "agencies."
Emanuel, who chairs the House Democratic Caucus, recalled the previous conflict over Cheney's reluctance to reveal details of meetings with oil executives to discuss energy policy. "At every step of the way, he has chosen secrecy over sunshine, obstruction over accountability," Emmanuel said.
"It's not a serious amendment," scoffed Republican Whip Roy Blunt of Missouri. "This amendment is an amendment in search of a press release."
Rep. Ralph Regula, R-Ohio, warned Democrats that "it might come back to haunt you at some time in the future" when a Democrat holds the vice presidency. "Because some members may not like the current vice president, or any future vice president, doesn't mean Congress should use its power of the purse to eliminate funding for the office."
In yet another flashpoint between Democrats and Cheney, Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., said Thursday that the House Natural Resources Committee panel will hold a hearing into the role Cheney may have played in the 2002 deaths of about 70,000 salmon near the California-Oregon border.
Rahall, chairman of that committee, said Cheney's part in developing a 10-year water plan for the Klamath River, reported Wednesday by The Washington Post, resulted in the largest adult salmon kill in the history of the West.
The Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday issued subpoenas to the offices of President Bush, Cheney and others demanding documents on the warrantless wiretapping program.
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"While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation": "What would a Democrat president have done at that point?"
"Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack."
