When my son started his first job bagging groceries at the local grocery store he had plans on how he was going to spend his first paycheck. When the big moment came, he opened the envelope and ask me, "Where did my pay go? What's FICA? What are all these deductions?" When I was finished explaining it all to him, he decided that he would work more hours. He worked other peoples hours thinking that he was going to make so much more money. Well, he did make some more money. But, the government took more from him. When this was discussed again I told him that the liberals want to take even more of his wages from him. His response, "Screw that!"
So one of the latest big scams we the public are witness to involves our elected officials giving themselves raises. Dakota County commissioners now make $64,700 for a part time job (up from $61,600) plus $4,659 for a car and expense allowance. The big insult to us working folk is that they feel that given the number of staff and committee meetings, their weekly workload is roughly equivalent to a part-time job.
The lucky members of our US Congress have just received a $4,100 per year raise to $169,300 despite having a lower approval rating than our President.
Last session, our own Jim Metzen, along with other members of the Senate Rules Committee, gave themselves a 45% increase in per diem. They approved, for themselves, without the approval of the citizens, or a vote of the full Senate, to give themselves $96 a day for lunch money!
In the House, Representative Rick Hansen, co-authored HF1468 which asks for the creation of a committee, yes, another committee, to establish salaries for legislators. It looks fishy to me, like they have realized that we are not to happy about the abuse of the system to line their own pockets with per diem money. They want to dip into our pockets again and give themselves pay raises but they are quite aware that this will cause a big stink. This behavior could be especially damaging with an election on the horizon. So the plan is to establish a committee to give them the pay raises they desire so they can pass the buck and blame some one else for their money grubbing ways.
The Senate version, SF0898, happens to be coauthored by good old Jim Metzen himself. But lucky for us, I would bet my bottom dollar he is on his last term.
The democrats, who happened to claim last election that they were all about being fiscally responsible have done nothing but propose massive, regressive, tax increases. Increased their per diem to line their pockets, doubled the bloated house committee budget from $324,000 to $646,000! Now they propose to expand government to even larger proportions by creating a committee to give them the raises they feel they are so entitled to!
I have a quick suggestion for them. They can save a lot of time and suspense and hire the firm that recommended the raise in pay for the Ramsey County Commissioners! It worked for them. They are making more money now, and hardly any one showed up to protest at the public hearings. But then again, all those meetings were scheduled during the day when all of us toiling masses happened to be at work, paying taxes for their continued folly.
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