From Advertising Age’s Web site comes the “try to spin this one” challenge of the day: “Pretend you work for Congress … and have to spin congressional pay raises in a positive light. No cheating: You can’t have your pretend client opt out of the pay raises.”
“A serious public relations professional should welcome a challenge, something almost impossible to paint in a positive light,” reads the Ad Age “homework” instructions for Dec. 17.
Is this why “communications directors” earn the big bucks? You’d have to be a slick, head-spinning 2 a.m. “infomercial” to sell congressional pay raises even to insomniacs.
In case you missed it last week in the midst of Oprah and her celebrity pals offering $50,000 for VIP treatment at the 44th inaugural, there was a little story buried on the back pages about 535 members of the House and Senate receiving automatic pay raises in January to the tune of $4,700 apiece.
Yes, you read right; that’s $2.5 million more of taxpayer dollars to raise congressional salaries to a meager $174,000 annually after their 2.8 percent cost-of-living increase.
In fact, they get these raises every year. But when so many of their employers are hurting, shouldn’t this year be different?
No. Congress already voted down freezing their pay.
“Look at the way the economy is and how most people aren’t counting on a holiday bonus or a pay raise — they’re just happy to have gainful employment,” Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense told the Hill newspaper. “But you have the lawmakers who are set up and ready to get their next installment of a pay raise and go happily along their way.”
Well, you might say that our dedicated public servants are worth $4,700 more in 2009 for watching the U.S. economy tank in 2008 and still doing little to help their taxpaying constituents.
Our congressional members work so hard pontificating into the wee hours of the morning about all manner of minutiae to forge a $700 billion bailout package that is as transparent as the Washington Monument.
Mind you, the cost of living in the nation’s capital is one of the highest in the country. Congressional representatives have to maintain two households and constituents services in those home districts. And, those haircuts, manicures and Guccis don’t come cheap. Oh, don’t forget their travel expenses and business lunches. (Oops, we pay for those too, don’t we?)
Well, $4,700 isn’t really that much money is it? Except for someone who hasn’t even earned that much income in months, or hadn’t seen an increase in the minimum wage for nearly a decade because, you guessed it, Congress wouldn’t approve it.
Isn’t it interesting how politicians, many of whom are millionaires, are able to rail with righteous indignation about the need for everyone else’s salary to be cut? Asking corporate executives to slash their outrageous compensation packages is one thing, but forcing blue-collar union workers to take a cut or minimum-wage moms to weather furloughs for the common good is hypocritical.
I know of a Falls Church family with a half-dozen multigenerational members who have worked for the same government contractor for decades. They were forced to take either a one-week or two-week furlough on Christmas Eve. They did so without complaining in hopes that none of them would be laid off.
In Baltimore mayor and council members received $3,700 pay raises, and after some wavering, accepted the increases because — get this — the increases were mandated by law. However, these lawmakers pledged to give them to charities after the public outcry.
Leaders, as one U.S. congresswoman told me, should “lead by example.”
Hmm; can’t imagine for just one second why congressional job-disapproval rating is at an all-time high of 73.4 percent, according to Real Clear Politics? Can’t believe that unpopular President Bush’s ratings are slightly better at 69.8 percent disapproval?
I don’t know about you, but I could do an awful lot with nearly $5,000 more next year, including renewing my newspaper and magazine subscriptions so my aging friends and colleagues could stop losing their jobs.
One is a 25-year veteran editor who has not been fully employed since September 2007, and she has been living off of a part-time teaching stipend and a withdrawal from her 401(k).
“Congress can bailout the financial industry, and the president is giving Detroit automakers a bailout, but no one has yet to address Main Street America and the things we have to deal with, like taking out money from a 401(k),” this former editor said.
“Folks all over this country are losing their jobs, and they are running out of unemployment funds, and no one is saying anything about dealing with that,” she continued.
This editor said she is waiting to take a second withdrawal from her 401(k) fund because she is hoping that the Obama administration and Congress will pass legislation to reduce or eliminate the penalty from withdrawing from 401(k)s because of the economy. She also would like to see Congress pass legislation that repeals the income tax on unemployment checks.
“I’m not taking it out for frivolous things, but to live,” she said. Luckily, she has not fallen behind on her mortgage, and her daughter’s scholarship and student loans cover most of the educational expenses.
However, “the fact is that I know within the next two years, if things don’t get better I will have spent my entire 401(k),” which was about $200,000, she said. “Or, I will be underemployed and not making the money I have made or not be using my full spectrum of skills.”
Of the $4,700 extra for congressional salaries? “It’s not that much in light of what they make generally, but that would cover my bills for the month,” she said.
“They should have that money put in the unemployment fund or some fund that will reach everyday Americans that are suffering to show their sincerity and to show they want to help average Americans get through this crisis the way they want to help the auto industry get through this crisis,” the unemployed editor said.
Spin a congressional pay raise in light of 2 million unemployed Americans? There aren’t enough colors in the rainbow to “paint in a positive light” this abomination. I flunk the Ad Age challenge.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.