During the Senate's consideration of the most recent Congressional spending orgy -- the 1,132-page, $410 billion, nearly 9,000 earmark-infested Omnibus spending bill, Louisiana Republican Senator David Vitter forced the Senate to vote to keep their automatic annual pay raises:
He tried to amend the measure with a proposal that few lawmakers would dare to oppose in a recession: canceling the automatic increases in lawmaker salaries, now at $174,000. Using a parliamentary tactic, Vitter forced Reid to schedule a vote on his amendment for a vote.
Unfortunately, the Senate voted 52 to 47 to kill Vitter's amendment and keep their automatic pay raises.
As I wrote back in 2003, the Congressional automatic stealth pay raise system is just wrong.
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