Time to Get out the VOTE AMERICA!!!
Posted on 12/08/2001 8:52:29 AM PST by Bad~Rodeo
WASHINGTON (AP) - Members of Congress are on their way to a $4,900 pay raise in January as the Senate used a midnight vote to thwart lawmakers who tried to block it.
After a debate that lasted five minutes late Friday night, the Senate used a 65-33 procedural vote to defeat an effort by Sens. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., to stop the increase from taking effect. Under a 1989 law, legislators get an annual cost-of-living raise unless the House and Senate vote to block it, a mechanism that often lets the increases take effect with little notice. .
The latest boost is for 3.4 percent and will raise members' annual salaries to $150,000. .
Feingold questioned the timing of a congressional pay boost when "our economy is in a recession and hundreds of thousands of workers have been laid off." He also noted that the string of four straight budget surpluses is now expected to end. .
Fourteen of the 30 senators running for re-election next year voted against the pay raise. Two who will retire in January - Sens. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, and Strom Thurmond, R-S.C. - voted for the increase, while a third retiree - Jesse Helms, R-N.C. - did not vote. .
Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., and Minority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., voted not to block the increase. .
The House has already passed legislation opening the door for the pay increase. .
The January increase will be the third congressional pay raise in the last four years. Before this period, lawmakers increased their salaries less frequently, but the political risk faded as the economy boomed and federal surpluses soared in the late 1990s. .
By tradition, the annual spending bill for the Treasury Department is the battleground for congressional pay raises. .
The final version of that bill, which lacked language blocking the pay raise, overwhelmingly passed the House and Senate this fall and was signed into law by President Bush on Nov. 12. .
Feingold was blocked from trying to stop the pay raise earlier this year. The vote Friday came as the Senate debated the defense spending bill. .
Time to Get out the VOTE AMERICA!!!
Thank God these dithering old fools are retiring. I'm voting for the Constitution Party in '02 and '04.
Never thought I'd agree with Feingold.
The rest of the country is sacrificing during this wartime. Why can't Congress?
At some point people need to grow up about the congressional salary issue. Doesn't look like it will ever happen. There are dentists making more than Senators.
Dentists earn it.
I'd rather they just take the money and stay at home about 11 and 1/2 months a year. Anything they need to do actually mandated by the US Consittution could be handled in less than two weeks. No one is safe when these fools are in session doing the "peoples business".
sui
No actually I'd like to see the likes of them in a military uniform in Afganistan. I would also like to see them live on military pay and get a mere 5% pay raise while they are under combat situations for most of the year. They don't deserve the raise. Their preformance in both parties and houses is pathetic. Why do they deserve it? For thinking up new ways to subvert the constitution?
Alphabetical by Senator Name Akaka (D-HI), Nay Allard (R-CO), Yea Allen (R-VA), Nay Baucus (D-MT), Yea Bayh (D-IN), Nay Bennett (R-UT), Nay Biden (D-DE), Nay Bingaman (D-NM), Nay Bond (R-MO), Nay Boxer (D-CA), Nay Breaux (D-LA), Nay Brownback (R-KS), Yea Bunning (R-KY), Yea Burns (R-MT), Nay Byrd (D-WV), Nay Campbell (R-CO), Nay Cantwell (D-WA), Nay Carnahan (D-MO), Yea Carper (D-DE), Nay Chafee (R-RI), Nay Cleland (D-GA), Yea Clinton (D-NY), Nay Cochran (R-MS), Nay Collins (R-ME), Yea Conrad (D-ND), Nay Corzine (D-NJ), Yea Craig (R-ID), Nay Crapo (R-ID), Nay Daschle (D-SD), Nay Dayton (D-MN), Nay DeWine (R-OH), Yea Dodd (D-CT), Nay Domenici (R-NM), Nay Dorgan (D-ND), Nay Durbin (D-IL), Yea Edwards (D-NC), Yea Ensign (R-NV), Yea Enzi (R-WY), Yea Feingold (D-WI), Yea Feinstein (D-CA), Nay Fitzgerald (R-IL), Yea Frist (R-TN), Nay Graham (D-FL), Nay Gramm (R-TX), Nay Grassley (R-IA), Yea Gregg (R-NH), Nay Hagel (R-NE), Nay Harkin (D-IA), Nay Hatch (R-UT), Nay Helms (R-NC), Not Voting Hollings (D-SC), Nay Hutchinson (R-AR), Yea Hutchison (R-TX), Yea Inhofe (R-OK), Nay Inouye (D-HI), Nay Jeffords (I-VT), Not Voting Johnson (D-SD), Yea Kennedy (D-MA), Nay Kerry (D-MA), Nay Kohl (D-WI), Nay Kyl (R-AZ), Nay Landrieu (D-LA), Nay Leahy (D-VT), Nay Levin (D-MI), Yea Lieberman (D-CT), Nay Lincoln (D-AR), Yea Lott (R-MS), Nay Lugar (R-IN), Nay McCain (R-AZ), Yea McConnell (R-KY), Nay Mikulski (D-MD), Nay Miller (D-GA), Yea Murkowski (R-AK), Nay Murray (D-WA), Nay Nelson (D-FL), Nay Nelson (D-NE), Nay Nickles (R-OK), Nay Reed (D-RI), Nay Reid (D-NV), Nay Roberts (R-KS), Yea Rockefeller (D-WV), Nay Santorum (R-PA), Nay Sarbanes (D-MD), Nay Schumer (D-NY), Yea Sessions (R-AL), Yea Shelby (R-AL), Nay Smith (R-NH), Yea Smith (R-OR), Yea Snowe (R-ME), Yea Specter (R-PA), Yea Stabenow (D-MI), Yea Stevens (R-AK), Nay Thomas (R-WY), Nay Thompson (R-TN), Nay Thurmond (R-SC), Nay Torricelli (D-NJ), Nay Voinovich (R-OH), Nay Warner (R-VA), Nay Wellstone (D-MN), Yea Wyden (D-OR), Yea
A Congressional barracks!
Your dishonesty and willingness to submit your life to Hillary is showing.
This gives a guy like Bad~Rodeo a chance to front for the likes of people like Corzine. Better to buy an election then to work for it - that seems to be what Bad is supporting.
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