Washington Just Doesn't Get It

We all enjoyed -- admit it, even you most diehard of Detroit automaker supporters -- all of us were glued to the set when the Big Three chiefs were grilled for their greedy and stupid business practices while lapping at the government trough for billions in loan guarantees and handouts.

Are you enjoying paying more for the self-serving blowhards in Washington who served up the fresh crow for the business executives? (for a primer in how Washington works there's no better than P.J. O'Rourke's book, at left -- check it out on Amazon)

TheHill.com has a fascinating return to reality, Capitol Hill-style, with this word our courageous leaders (such as Barney Frank and Chris Dodd, the "look the other way" overseers of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's collapse) won't step in and stop the pay raises for -- themselves.

Congress, according to TheHill, has done this before; they suspended the automatic pay raise in 2000, but apparently the economy is so strong these days it's worth the additional $4,700.00 a year elected officials will be granting themselves. Yes, the same men and women who crabbed over bonuses due the wizards of Wall Street who took the American economy into the dumper will themselves take the money for their own purses and wallets.

Want real reform? Here's a suggestion: let's tie in the "automatic" vote period on congressional pay raises to the election cycle; they have to have a recorded vote turning down the raises but it has to be taken during the summer session, before the General Election, every two years. That way, voters will know before the ballot casting just how their public servants really define the word "servant."