The minimal wage and Home pay have remained the identical since 2009 — however Republicans solely wish to elevate one of many two.
Home Republicans have made it a prime precedence this 12 months to safe cuts to almost each federal authorities program, spending months taking purpose at welfare packages with a view to permit hundreds of thousands of People to starve and languish. However within the newest draft of their 2024 spending invoice that’s shifting by means of the chamber, Republicans are searching for to lift spending for one key group: themselves.
Underneath the legislative department spending invoice authorized by the Home Appropriations Committee final month, Home members would obtain a 4.6 % pay elevate, according to the Congressional Analysis Service, reports Roll Call. This could be an $8,000 elevate over their present salaries of $174,000.
If Republicans get their approach, the elevate would are available in a invoice that in any other case cuts spending throughout the board apart from protection, veterans’ care and border militarization — drastically lowering funding for public packages and the social security web.
This would come with cuts to essential anti-poverty packages like Social Security, Medicare, and free college lunches. It might additionally, in accordance with a brand new draft of the labor, well being and schooling funding invoice launched Thursday, eradicate federal funding for public well being research on points like firearm security and ending HIV whereas slashing Schooling Division funding by 28 %.
In different phrases, Republicans are searching for to fairly actually enrich themselves whereas taking each transfer attainable to chop advantages for the general public, who they’re speculated to serve.
Lawmakers sometimes embrace language blocking a cost-of-living enhance for themselves within the finances invoice, and the availability should be added again in when the invoice goes by means of the remainder of the appropriations course of. However the inclusion of the elevate even additional underscores the concept that Republicans don’t truly care about lowering authorities spending relating to points that might assist themselves or their rich allies.
Home Legislative Department Appropriations Chair Mark Amodei (R-Nevada) informed Roll Name that it’s “not precisely grasping” to lift lawmakers’ salaries because the final time they had been raised was 2009.
“The coverage helps, hey, as soon as each twelve years, you may have a cost-of-living enhance,” Amodei stated. “However the politics is — you know the way that can go.”
Amodei and fellow Republicans don’t seem to subscribe to that very same philosophy for hundreds of thousands of employees throughout the nation.
Coincidentally, 2009 was additionally the final time that Congress raised the federal minimal wage, one thing that Republicans are staunchly against. Actually, every single day that Congress fails to take action extends the longest interval within the historical past of the coverage that the minimal wage hasn’t been raised — and the wage is at its lowest worth in 67 years.
At a mere $7.25 an hour, a employee must work over 1,100 hours, or over half a 12 months assuming a 40-hour work week, simply with a view to be paid the identical quantity because the elevate that Republicans are searching for to provide themselves subsequent 12 months.
