Good point.
Its expensive to live in Washington and $174,000 doesn’t go very far. You have to maintain two offices, pay your staff and have two places to live.
Unless you’re independently wealthy, good luck with life as a congresscritter.
He is worth 13 million -all of it while in Congress
The cost of maintaining two offices and 2 staffs is not paid out of the Congressmen’s or Senators’ salaries. So is most travel.
They often DO have to maintain 2 distant residences, but often those who don’t bring their families to DC share an apt. Some DO live in their offices.
Nonsense. Your staff is paid out of your office operating expense. You do not have to have two places to live. What you need is a home in your district and room in DC. You apparently think that the $174,000 (and that doesn’t count all the other perks) are the only funds available to these ‘servants’.
This is a ridiculous amount of money to pay those who are supposed to represent us
You chose it so stop bing a cry baby.
When you retire how much will retirement money will you be getting for doing what you’re doing now - NOTHING.
You’ll be getting a lot more than the money I receive at $1800.00 + per month.
What a f’ing crybaby.
“Its expensive to live in Washington and $174,000 doesn’t go very far. You have to maintain two offices, pay your staff and have two places to live.”
We are talking about his SALARY!!! All his ancillary expenses are covered under the House Budget. He doesn’t pay for any of what you have mentioned except a second residence, which in the case of Moron, since he reps a VA district may not be needed. If they all did their jobs, they would go home on the weekends and live in a dorm during the week.
Neither of those expenses come out of the $174k.
Actually, he is probably right, although it sounds perverse to people in “flyover country” (and I am definitely there) that you can’t live decently on this. DC is an expensive city even to be POOR in. It’s even more expensive of a place to have the trappings of the upper-middle class in. Would you even DREAM of sending your kids to public school there? That has to be 15-30K per year, per child, for a lot more than four years.
I’ve estimated that it would take at least 2.5x my present salary to live the way that I do in a big city like Chicago. Absolutely no employer in Chicago in their right mind is going to pay me 2.5x what i earn now in my present field.
I’d actually consider giving them a substantial raise. In the big scheme of things, it wouldn’t cost much, and it might make them less prone to corruption. I’d go for it even more if there was a commensurate increase for the penalties on illegal official activity.
Its expensive to live in Washington and $174,000 doesn’t go very far. You have to maintain two offices, pay your staff and have two places to live.
* * *
Okay, I get that you (the Congress critter) have to pay for two places to live (unless you just sleep in your office, as some do, I guess). But what’s this about staff? Do you mean office staff? I assumed they were paid for directly by the taxpayers. (Or maybe you mean the cook, housekeeper, etc. for the Congress critter.) And do you have to shell out the money to rent your own home district office? Again I assumed that was paid for directly by the taxpayers. Can you (or someone who knows this stuff) elaborate? Thanks!
If you think Congress members aren’t well treated, read this...
http://www.senate.gov/CRSReports/crs-publish.cfm?pid=%270E%2C*PL[%3D%23P%20%20%0A