The salaries of members of Congress are edging towards $200,000 a year, the only standout being the speaker of the House who gets about $25,000 more. They all get a cost-of-living adjustment yearly unless they vote against it. Living in DC isn't cheap. But still, that's doing pretty well.
Add in the perks. Among the perks is what we don't have numbers for: the money and benefits "earned" from wealthy supporters. It's that money, not our votes, that drives decision-making in Washington.
The president does no less well. His take-home pay (and don't forget: "home" is a perk) is $400,000. (Clinton got $200,000. The salary was doubled when George W. Bush entered the White House.)
Added into all this is a fair guarantee that, as a reward for their public service -- their "sacrifice" -- that they don't have to worry about their financial futures. Quite apart from handsome benefits coming from all of us, they also become members of an old-boy network giving them access to private sector benefits.
Keep this in mind as you read Paul Krugman's take on the quality of that public service. What are our public servants doing for us at a time when so many Americans are having a hard time, a hard time successive presidents and members of Congress have a big share in causing?
...The latest budget deal more than wipes out any positive economic effects of the big prize Mr. Obama supposedly won from last December’s deal, a temporary extension of his 2009 tax cuts for working Americans. And the price of that deal, let’s remember, was a two-year extension of the Bush tax cuts, at an immediate cost of $363 billion, and a potential cost that’s much larger — because it’s now looking increasingly likely that those irresponsible tax cuts will be made permanent.
More broadly, Mr. Obama is conspicuously failing to mount any kind of challenge to the philosophy now dominating Washington discussion — a philosophy that says the poor must accept big cuts in Medicaid and food stamps; the middle class must accept big cuts in Medicare (actually a dismantling of the whole program); and corporations and the rich must accept big cuts in the taxes they have to pay. Shared sacrifice!
Is there anything we can look for in Congress or the White House that promises a more hopeful future for the average American? Not from Congress and not from a president who seems to fancy himself above all of successive administrations' failures.
What’s going on here? Despite the ferocious opposition he has faced since the day he took office, Mr. Obama is clearly still clinging to his vision of himself as a figure who can transcend America’s partisan differences. And his political strategists seem to believe that he can win re-election by positioning himself as being conciliatory and reasonable, by always being willing to compromise.
But if you ask me, I’d say that the nation wants — and more important, the nation needs — a president who believes in something, and is willing to take a stand. And that’s not what we’re seeing.
This is Barack Obama's "Mission Accomplished" moment. Just like his predecessor, he appears to be taking credit for something which not only hasn't taken place but which promises years, even decades, of suffering and loss on the part of most Americans.
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Republicans have won two rounds since December: on tax cuts for the wealthy and now on spending cuts. At least Obama got some economic stimulus out of last year’s tax deal. The latest agreement is a modest setback to economic growth and, depending on how you want to count, gives Republicans either three-fifths or close to four-fifths of the cuts they sought. ...
...For Obama, it is not good enough to cast himself as the school principal scolding competing congressional gangs. He needs the courage to defend the government he leads. He needs to declare that he will no longer bargain with those who use threats to shut down the government or force it to default on its debt as tools of intimidation. We’re all a bit weary of Obama telling everyone to be grown-ups, but this would be the grown-up thing to do. ...EJ Dionne