Congress has gone too far with its recent pay raise

To the Editor:

Once again, our members of Congress, in both houses and both parties, have shown just how out of touch they are with the American people they purport to represent. With the stock market reeling, the war on terrorism raging, and corporate greed running rampant, members of Congress have awarded themselves still another “stealth” pay raise! Incredibly, this is the fourth one in four years.

Disingenuously called a “cost of living adjustment,” this latest raid on the treasury is a 3.3 percent pay raise amounting to about $5,000 per member.

Once this latest pay raise takes effect, in January, 2003, rank and file members will be making about $155,000 a year. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Add to that a panoply of other perquisites, and it’s obvious our elected representatives are a band of pampered plutocrats who are wealthy because they are powerful and powerful because they are wealthy.

It’s high time for the American people to rise up and voice their ringing disapproval of these despicable acts, which are as ill-timed as they are arrogant. Only then will Congress rein in its rapacious appetite for more and more of the taxpayers’ money, yours and mine.
Thomas B. Vaughn
212 Morrison St.
McMinnville