Retiring Republican Congressman Whines That $174,000 Salary Was Too Small

Republican Representative Patrick McHenry has announced that he will not be seeking reelection, and part of the reason is because he thinks the yearly salary of $174,000 just isn't enough. Members of Congress make more than $100,000 OVER the yearly median household income for the United States, and many of them are millionaires already. To complain about a salary that dwarfs what most people bring home in a year is absolutely absurd, as Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins explains.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

Republican representative Patrick McHenry, who recently announced that he would not be seeking another term in office, did say just a few days ago that, you know, one of the things that really bugs him, and I guess this contributed to his decision to retire, is that Congress just isn't paid enough. Now, for those of you who understand, or maybe if you don't, whatever, uh, congresspeople on the bare minimum because you know, if you get, you have better positions, you do make more money. But, uh, rank and file members of Congress make $174,000 a year. The average median household income for the United States is only $74,000 per year. So members of Congress are making a hundred thousand dollars more than the average household in the United States, not the average person, the average household, including two income houses. So you're making a hundred thousand dollars more. And by golly, McHenry says, well, it's just not enough.

Here's what he said. Most of us live on the salary and then, you know, the very wealthy few end up dominating the news because of their personal stock trades. When most of us don't have wealth. Oh, poor guy didn't have wealth. Oh no. Uh, the average median net worth, median net worth of a member of Congress is over a million dollars. Maybe Patrick McCainy doesn't have a million dollars. I don't have a million dollars. I I don't have $174,000. But he's mad that some people have money and he does not, and he wants more money for a job where he basically, along with everybody else in Congress, didn't do a thing. This past year, you're getting paid $174,000, you get months and months of vacation per year. You only have to work on a regular congressional schedule three and a half days a week.

But Faren you may be saying these people have to, and this is a point Patrick McHenry brought up, we gotta travel back and forth to our districts, right? I gotta have a, an apartment here or a condo or something in dc I gotta have a home in my district and I'm on airplanes all the time. Yeah, that gets expensive. Good thing we pay for that. Not you, members of Congress get stipends not only to maintain a residence in Washington, DC but they also get reimbursements and per diem when traveling back and forth through their districts. So those plane flights are going back and forth to home, into Washington dc Y'all don't pay for those. We do. And you get over a hundred dollars per day every time you fly back to your district. So you can do things like go out to a nice dinner, you know, do whatever the hell else you want to do. So we are already paying for that. That's not coming

Out of your $174,000 salary. Now, when this story came out, I saw a lot of people online talk about the fact, and you get free healthcare. That's actually not true. Congress is actually, they, they get their insurance through the Obamacare exchange. Uh, but the federal government taxpayers us, uh, we pay 72% of their yearly premiums. They only have to pay 28%, which is roughly the same if you get your employer, uh, insurance through your employer.