Broader unemployment measure at 17.5%

[why?]

Originally Posted by H3LlIoN

Politics is full of assholes that thought "Gee, I know how to fix things."

I disagree. Politics is full of assholes that think about nothing except getting lots of political power and money. DC is basically one gigantic party and everyone wants to be the one that everyone else wants to see.

But that is what happens when you have full time lawmakers.

[H3LlIoN]

As far as the first part, at some point, they were idealist with grand ideas of a functional and proper gov't, whatever that may be.


Regarding this:

Originally Posted by why?

that is what happens when you have full time lawmakers.

I agree. Make that shit part time, and voluntary. See how many people show up to the party when it's on their own time/tab. My guess is we'd progress a lot farther if congress lost the power to vote on their own salaries...

Just fyi, when this all started, congress was not salaried, and only got $6 dollars a day for when they were in session. With inflation, that would add up to $137.01 in today's money.

The average in session time for congress in the 90's was 278, and it's been declining since then. Using today's inflated number would net congress $38,088.78. Adjusted for annual, this would calculate to $50,008.65 annual salary, which is no small number, considering 2007 median income for single male over 45 is $45,113.

Now, instead of adjusting income based on inflation, congress opted instead to use an income calculator called a "Cost of living" increase, which has swelled to $174,000 for normal congressional positions, $193,400 for party leader status, and $223,000 for speaker position. Using the $174,000, that breaks down to $476 a day! On top of that, they get fed employee pensions, and countless other benefits.

Also, keep in mind that this does not factor in weekends and holidays. If you take 2009, factor out weekends and the 5 major holidays (all of which congress rarely works) you get 261 actual workdays. That breaks down to $666.66 a day, proving once and for all that congress is the devil. :-P No joke, the calculation came out that way. Anyway, that would be $854 a day for speaker.

And people wonder why our gov't is broken...