Trust Me, I’m Here to Help You, Not!

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

If I had to choose the world’s most often used lie, it would be between the previous remark and the oft uttered, “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 all”?

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. The liberals have what they want. I just hope it’s right for the country.

I’m just an average Joe Six-Pack on a fixed income. 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.

Incidentally, Speaker Nancy Pelosi pulls down a healthy $223,000.00 plus her own jet.

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, which they get every year unless they vote against it. Nice work if you can get it, huh?

On January 1, 2009, they received a $4,700.00 raise while thousands upon thousands of plain old American citizens received pink slips.

I once saw a movie where Washington’s shenanigans were called the ‘Potomac Two-Step.’

Here’s why.

To stop the raises, Congress must vote to stop the automatic raises. Neither party wants that to happen.

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

That’s the ‘Potomac Two-Step.’

In all fairness, some lawmakers have tried, Mitchell D-AZ, Paul R-TX, and Feingold D-WI. These conscientious folks have introduced bills to stop the automatic raises, but all have met the same fate, merciless deaths at the hands of greedy congressmen who deserve to be back in their own states sweeping garbage from the streets.

Now, if you pay attention to current 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 for wasteful spending, demanding CEOs take a dollar-a-year salary, the proverbial pot calling the kettle black.

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 any house, White House or not, being paid $100,000.00. But then, what do I know? I’m just a plain old American hick down here in Texas.

But I tell you 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.

Given the convoluted political environment today, it might not help, but I’ll feel better about it.

http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com