Congress gives itself a $4700 pay raise!

Congratulations! It must be very hard to live on $169,300 a year, so I'm glad that our representatives will now get a nearly $5,000 raise, upping their annual income to $174,000 (the way it works, they automatically get a pay raise every year unless they themselves vote it down, and they have voted it down before - but no plans to do so this year!).

Now, sure, those same members of Congress (Democrats, actually) think that if you make $95,000 a year, you're rich, and don't deserve to partake in the stimulus bill's $7500 first-time homebuyer tax credit. And sure, those same members of Congress think that you don't deserve to benefit from the stimulus plan's $500 a person tax cut if you make over $100,000 a year - again, because they think you're just too rich.

But those same members of Congress make almost $170,000 a year, and they are suffering so much that they permit themselves a nearly $5,000 raise while millions of Americans are being thrown out of work. This, even though those Democrats live in the same town, facing the same cost of living, as people they're cutting off at only $100,000 a year.

If the Democrats thinks that a private citizen making $100,000 a year is rich, that people making $100,000 a year don't deserve federal help, and that those people need to suck it up and take one for the team, then Democratic members of Congress shouldn't be pigging out at the federal trough with a $5000 pay raise when they make a hell of a lot more. Fair is fair. If you're going to play the "screw the rich" game, then screw yourselves too. Or are some pigs more equal than others?