I'LL SEE YOUR BAIL-OUT, & THE TAXPAYER WILL RAISE ME $4,700

With legislative slight-of-hand, an automatic salary increase of $4,700 per Member of Congress was recently triggered, thereby boosting the salary of each Member of Congress by the sum of $4,700 while taxpayer wages have grown stagnant, housing prices and equity have tumbled, taxpayer funds have been cast into the once capitalist winds to socialize debt for inept corporations, and the federal surplus in place when Bill Clinton left the presidency has morphed into the George Herbert Hoover Bush mega-deficit as he gets ready none too soon to leave the presidency.

Why should a Member of Congress get a $4,700 per year 'cost of living' increase? By and large, despite what the media would have you believe, the vast majority of the members of the House and Senate are hard-working public officials with public schedules (both in district and in DC) that negatively impact their family lives, put their every activity under the kleig light inspection of a "gotcha'" focused media, and restrict their ability to fulfil their personal obligations while necessitating the public disclosure of their personal finances in an intrusive manner none of us would condone in our personal lives absent serving in the public sector.

The vast majority of Members of Congress don't garage a circa 1970s Mercedes in a Congressional garage in lieu of keeping it in upper Manhattan. The vast majority of Members of Congress don't have secret families in the Virginia suburbs while their other family resides in their NY district. The vast majority of Members of Congress don't dance with Argentine non-Arkansas strippers in the Tidal Basin nor sexually abuse their secretaries like a contemporary Wayne Hays, and the vast majority of Members of Congress aren't Floridian pedaphiles who abuse Congressional pages.

Each Member of Congress, now that Gingrich is gone on to the lecture circuit and his 3rd "family values" spouse and Congress (post-Contract on America) works a full week, each Member must maintain a residence in the jurisdiction from which they were elected (or appointed), as well as provide a place in which to live when the House or Senate is in session in DC. Whether they live on an "Unsinkable" houseboat on the Potomac, have roommates sharing an apartment, or have purchased a home in DC, Maryland or Virginia, their household expenses are de facto double those of the constituents whom they serve.

Each Member of Congress must juggle a phenomenal number of public appearances in their home district or state; visiting things like Eagle Scout Courts of Honor, ribbon cuttings at a new VFW, marching in parades, holding district office hours, answering correspondence, visiting constituents, holding hearings in their district/state, and a plethora of other activities that make you wonder how you fit so much into only a 24-hour window.

Yes, each Member of Congress, of necessity ego driven to seek such a position, sought the office which they will be sworn into when the next session begins. Yes, each Member knew what they were getting into, and yes, the salary now paid is substantially more than that which is paid to the vast majority of US taxpayers; who after all fund these Congressional salaries.

However, for the vast majority of Members of Congress, you get a pretty decent value for the dollar. They work hard, largely work smart, successfully counter balance the sometimes conflicting parochial wants of their home district/state and the greater national interest, and can be of infinite help in assisting constituents with matters that the federal bureaucracy seems systematically incapable of resolving.

What I will write next will be unpopular, but in essence, Members of Congress work with a work ethic and for a salary and benefits that are miniscule in comparison with equivalent senior managers in either the banking industry, the automotive industry, or of Wall Street.

The distinguished Gentleman from Long Island, New York, the Hon. Peter T King, while not always the most politically sensitive among us was, as he often is, correct while not politically-correct.

The incoming Members of the US Congress are entitled to this $4,700 raise, they deserve it as a cost-of-living increase, and unless and until the system by which such a COLA is automatically triggered, they are entitled to take the money and run.

And, I can guarantee you, unlike the people at AIG, neither Speaker Pelosi nor Majority Leader Hoyer, nor even Minority Leader Boehner in the House, nor Senators Reid or McConnell will use any of these monies for an executive retreat at an Arizona based resort.