Cuts for thee, but not for me

[babylonsister]

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/plum-line/2011/03/cuts_for_thee_but_not_for_me.html

Cuts for thee, but not for me
By Greg Sargent


The other day, the Associated Press reported that House Republicans were going easy on their own budgets for staff and salaries even as they hack away at the budgets of many federal agencies.

Along these lines, constituents in Arkansas' third district recently had a question for their new Congressman, freshman GOP Rep. Steve Womack. If Republicans are cutting the budget, why not cut proportionally into their own salaries and benefits, too?

A local Arkansas paper reports that Womack gave his constituents an interesting answer:

snip//

"My income is $174,000 a year," Womack said. "I do make a sizable amount, more than many people in this room, but I am not a wealthy person."

Much of a congressman's income must go toward traveling back and forth between one's district and maintaining two households, he said.

"I'm not one of the guys who wants to live on my couch -- I don't think it's healthy," Womack told the audience.

Emphasis mine. I tend to be a bit uncomfortable with Dem efforts to tar Republicans as hypocritical because they are accepting their Congressional health benefits and generous salaries even as they proceed with budget cuts that will badly impact the lives of others.

But what you're seeing here are the political perils of the "belt tightening" metaphor. If officials are going to keep telling us that in lean times, government must "tighten its belt" in the same manner that families must tighten theirs, then constituents will naturally ask those officials why they aren't tightening their own belts. And pleading for sympathy because your $174,000 annual salary is barely adequate to cover your two households doesn't seem like the best answer.

[Lasher]

1. The liar gets paid for travel to and from his home district.

Hypocrite and a liar.

[old mark]

2. K&R- Among the House's cuts is this, which would force Social Security to close for a month,

furloughing employees, and lengthening the backlog on new accounts and restoring wrongly closed accounts for those on disability...something that can take nearly 1 1/2 years now...

http://strengthensocialsecurity.org/social-security-keep-it-working

The GOP knows that Social Security has nothing to do with the defecit-they want to anger and hurt US citizens so they can blam it on the Democratic Administration and on Obama. This has nothing at all to do with governing the US-this is a grab for political power in the most cynical and unAmerican way since Boehner's former boss-Newt Gingrich-shut down the federal government in 1995. FWIW, that time worked out very bad for the GOP-they lost the next election and their control of congress.

mark

[madmom]

3. kasich of Ohio gave his staff big raises before he cut everyone elses pay....

http://www.plunderbund.com/2011/01/07/is-kasich-telling-the-full-truth-about-his-staffs-salary/

[Jokinomx]

4. Yep... kicked and rec'd

:toast: