Republican Controlled Congress Gives Themselves A Raise As Americans Struggle To Afford Groceries

As part of their last-minute budget deal this week, the Republican-controlled Congress decided to give themselves a raise as they prepare to head into the new Congressional year. Raises cannot go into effect until the NEXT session of Congress, and these Republicans absolutely knew that, which is why they decided to slip it in at the last minute. This is a slap in the face to struggling Americans who are about to watch all of their prices go up, 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.

As one of their last acts before they head off on a not deserved vacation. For the next few weeks, members of Congress reached a bipartisan continuing resolution, not even an actual budget bill, just a continuing resolution to keep the government funded for another couple months before they go through this whole song and dance again. But as part of this continuing resolution, they did something that analysts are calling politically toxic. And I agree with them a hundred percent on that because Congress voted to give themselves a raise at a time when millions of Americans, according to both pre-election and post-election polls, say that they're concerned that they can't afford goods and services on a daily basis. Congress says, you know what? Let's put more money in our pockets. We're talking about cutting food stamps. We're talking about cutting social security and cutting Medicare and Medicaid and all of those things that, you know, people depend on.

We're taking money from them, but let's give ourselves a raise. Now, on paper, the justification for the raise, I'll give them credit for this, looks normal, right? Because they're like, Hey, we have not had a raise since the year 2009, and we're only voting to give ourselves a cost of living increase. But that cost of living increase is going to cover the full span of 15 years. So if you're talking about a, you know, one to 3% cost of living increase per year, oh, suddenly you're talking massive numbers there, folks. And that of course, is what is going to happen with this at a time when Americans are telling us we can't afford groceries, we can't afford eggs and milk. Gasoline is outta control. And Congress says, we're not even gonna fully fund the government, but we are gonna put more money in our own pockets. Here's how Punchbowl News put it, the optics of Congress, an already unpopular institution giving itself a pay bump, has long been a, uh, seen as politically toxic. So expect this to get a lot of attention, particularly from conservatives already furious over the continuing resolution. Here's the thing too.

Congress cannot vote to raise their pay for the current session, which means if Congress votes to raise their pay, the pay raise does not take effect until the next new Congress gets sworn in. So technically, they're not raising their own pay, they're raising the pay for the people that are coming behind them, which, oh, wouldn't you know it? Once again, a Republican majority. So these people knew that, Hey, I'm coming back in a month getting re sworn in for another term. I want more money.

Even though you make nearly, uh, triple what the average American household income is, you're putting more money in your pockets while threatening to take away assistance programs for needy Americans. That's what Congress did. And yes, that is politically toxic, especially after Republicans. Were swearing, we're gonna help you. We're gonna bring your prices down. We care about the American people. No, they don't. If they did, they'd vote to outlaw price gouging. They would vote to increase the federal minimum wage. They could have done any one of those things, but instead they gave themselves a raise.