OK...I thought you were mad because of the pay raise, which comes from wages paid by us, the taxpayers.

If others choose to perk some of them, what does that have to do with the pay raise you are against?

I was referring to this chart

http://www.opensecrets.org/pfds/wealth_summary_img.php

I'm not mad at the pay raise - I don't like that its automatic though. I would like them to openly vote for it, like everything else.

I think Congress should get a constant multiple of the Federal minimum wage.

Average is not as meaningful as median.

Average the top (Harmon's $397 million) and the bottom (Hastings -$5 million) and you still have an "average" of nearly $200 million....so what? how meaningful is that?

I have a problem with them getting raises every year when they aren't willing to address raising the minimum wage every year and giving the lowest earners a REAL living wage.

I dunno, Anyone here have 1/200th of that? Post next.

Personally, I don't think anyone should be allowed to have over a billion dollars in personal wealth. Really. Who needs that much money?

Hey, when you make a claim that ALL members of Congress are getting "rich as shit", I'm just trying to understand how these bottom 25 in net worth ($0 or less) are getting rich:
http://www.opensecrets.org/pfds/over...ilter=C&sort=A

IMO, its no better than your equally bold statement that virtually ALL economists dont share Obama's economic growth projections.

The facts dont support your generalizations.

WTF? allowed? Do you not have even the slightest idea what made this country successful?

Yes, I do. Do YOU?

Why do you think we don't grant titles of nobility in this country? Why do you think it's written into the constitution that patents and copyrights should be for a limited amount of time?

Those are totally unrelated to the issue of limiting how much of a person's earnings they have the right to keep. If I earn $100 I have to pay taxes and the rest is mine. If I earn $100,000,000,000 I should pay taxes and then... not get to keep the rest of it?

FWIW - Anyone here believe that Joe Biden is worth only $215,997. There is no way on earth that is possible.

Also, Alcee L. Hastings (D-Fla) 2005, 2006, 2007 $-2,115,006
What are the odds of this man having the EXACT same net worth 3 years in a row?
I also noticed that in 2007, 20 of the bottom 25 were D's and 14 of the top 25 were D's. Not sure what that means, but it makes me question this data.

Net worth figures are easy to mess with. One person could give five different figures without lying. It all depends on the assets and expenses included or excluded.

The point is, those things were written into the Constitution because the FFs didn't want to create a country of peasants and nobility, or one where the nobility had all the money and power, and where they could run roughshod over the people. So we don't have titles of nobility, but one could argue that we have nobility just the same. We have created the same inequality that existed in Europe that the FFs were hoping to avoid.

They wrote the thing about patents and copyrights to create innovation and progress. They wanted people to invent things for the good of society, not for the good of the self. Greed and corruption were the things they were fighting. You know, it was a revolution. They were fighting the establishment.