For starters, all salary and benefits such as insurance should be approved by the voters. Congress should be in session no more than four months out of the year. ALL legislation should have a termination date. If it is good legislation, it can be renewed.
Since all legislation is restrictive, gridlock is good. Encourage more of it.
In my opening post I mentioned that this would not be a popular idea in many quarters. Here is a list of Congessional Benefits:
CONGRESSMEN WHO LIVE FRUGALLY are an endangered species. There is always plenty of money for traveling the world in high style while living a life of luxury and their pockets bulge.
The $165,200 salary is just the beginning. Only Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.) returns an unused portion of his expense money to the federal treasury.
Perks range from the glamorous to the mundane. They have free parking at Washington Reagan National Airport—just steps from their favorite terminal. The average Joe takes the subway or a cab to the airport.
Parking even at the far-off spaces served by shuttle buses costs more than a cab unless you take a cab for many miles to fly out of Washington. Average Joe has to reserve just one flight and be there two hours in advance and may still be bumped because airlines overbook. Your congressman can book three flights and take the one that best suits his convenience.
He doesn’t have to bother canceling the other two reservations, although he has a highly paid staff to handle such petty details for him. If he arrives seconds before take-off, average Joe gets bumped and the congressman gets seated.
Congress gives itself the finest medical care, financed by taxpayers. When the congressman has a bellyache (instead of giving one to taxpayers) he goes to Walter Reed for the finest care available. He enjoys huge retirement benefits in addition to Social Security—if he hangs around long enough, he can get a $200,000 pension.
But don’t expect him to struggle living within his $165,200 salary—there’s money everywhere. He can transfer $75,000 from his allotment for “office staff ” to “expenses.” Despite allegedly new House “travel restrictions” drawn up to calm voter outrage, lawmakers accepted free trips worth nearly $1.9 million in the first eight months of 2007—more than all of 2006, records show. U.S. ambassadors abroad are provided funds to entertain visiting congressmen.
“There’s a realization that these trips and meals are getting extra scrutiny,” Meredith McGehee of the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center, told USA Today.
“That will last for awhile, but we know it won’t last forever. The ethos of politics is, ‘what can we get away with?’”
http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/pockets_full_of_perks116.html