Once again the American people are faced with across the board cuts to federal spending that will undoubtedly trickle down to negatively affect the growing “middle class” by increasing taxes and lowering services.
The elected leaders of our country, after years of uncontrolled spending and corporate pandering, now expect the American public to place their children’s education and the nation’s health on the line to help pay for their inability to effectively and efficiently manage our resources.
“The current salary (2013) for rank-and-file members of the House and Senate is $174,000 per year.
The median personal wealth for members of Congress grew to $911,510 in 2009, up from $785,515 in 2008, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Nearly half of the members of Congress are millionaires.”
With 535 Representatives earning $174,000 the American people are paying our elected officials more than $93,090,000 in salary which does not include benefits. This is in addition to the money they receive from retirement payments.
The first sequester brought about a Congressional pay “freeze” which amounted to a savings of $856,000.
However, since Congress got us into our debt problems it is only reasonable to expect them to get us out by refusing their entire $174,000 salary until the federal budget becomes more manageable.
Instead, the American people will be convinced that legislators are doing everything they can to stop the uncontrolled spending which mean, educators, who make an average of $53,000 a year, must take a pay cut or loose their jobs in order to help bolster the economy.
In the meantime, corporate takeover of health, education, and incarceration are forcing our nation’s children into a lifetime of slavish servitude to a 21st Century workforce, running after the “middle class” carrot that is getting smaller and smaller as the “middle class” grows.
Until we understand that an excellent, child centered, experiential, developmentally appropriate education is the only answer to the myriad of social and economic problems we face in America, we will remain enslaved to the system of capitalism that has devoured the democratic system of government upon which our country was founded.
One man, one vote is the only hope our children have.
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