Not the cream
Mr. McKay and Mr. Stankiewicz wrote rather lengthy letters lauding the rise of Donald Trump in the GOP. While I was reading these letters the thought came to mind that it is not only cream that rises to the top.
W K Slater, Lakeport
It doesn’t add up
Many politicians in Washington D.C. believe that our government is too large and cumbersome, and that drastic measures are needed curtail its size and its programs so that the national debt can be reduced. Many of our fellow citizens agree with those beliefs.
In view of this I investigated how much it costs to maintain these politicians in the D.C., and what their work schedules are like. The information that follows can be easily obtained from numerous websites. For example, see http://search.aol.com/aol/image?q=2015+congressional+calendar&s_it=img-ans&v_t=webmail-searchbox or http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/uscongress/a/congresspay.htm.
The annual salary of our senators and representatives is $174K. The majority and minority leaders of both houses get $193K, and the speaker of the house receives $223.5K. We have 100 senators and 435 house members, and so in all they cost us about $93 million (M) per year. The annual allowance given to each member of the house for office and related expenses is about $1.5M and each senator gets over $3 M. Thus, the total annual allowance for our senators is about $300M and for our representatives is some $653M.
Each member of congress is permitted to earn up to $26K per year for work done outside of congress.
During 2015 both houses were scheduled to meet in session for 134 days, and the senate was scheduled to meet for an additional 45 days. Thus, the meetings that the members were to hold cost us about $565K per day for all of the representatives ($174K x 435/134) and about $97K per day for all of our senators (174Kx100/179). Their average activities during their days in session involved 2-3 hours on the floor or in committee meetings, 1-2 hours meeting with constituents and 1 hour of “strategic outreach” (i.e. meeting with the press, interacting with other politicians, etc). But more interestingly, they spend about 4 hours each weekday making phone calls asking for donations of funds for their reelection, and for the needs of their party.
Accordingly, they spend only 4-5 hours per day conducting “government business”.
If every house member and senator attended every day that was scheduled for them to meet, each representative would have been paid $1,300 per day, and each senator would have received $972 per day. If a politician attends every one of the scheduled days of sessions, and spends up to 5 hours per day on government business, then the pay for each representative would be $260 per hour while the senators would receive only $194 per hour.
We know that few if any politician attends every day of their scheduled sessions, and few if any will remain through the entirety of each session, and so their pay rates per hour of attendance would be considerably higher than those estimated above. Despite their high rates of pay, our current congress is one of the least productive in history because of severe gridlock (see http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Jim-Douglas-Governing-in-an-era-of-polarized-6838090.php). All of this makes me wonder why the politicians who are constantly caterwauling about decreasing government expenditures don’t insist that their pay be reduced to a level appropriate for the time they spend doing what they were elected to do, and commensurate with what they accomplish.
To put this in a meaningful perspective, the average annual salary of public school teachers in our country is about $38K. Thus, it would seem that we regard the contributions of our politicians in D.C. to our national and social well being to be much more important than are those made by our teachers.
Charles Nicoll, Lucerne
The other way around
Got the biggest kick out of the lady (R-B 5/18) bashing Trump about paying as little taxes as possible — who doesn’t? Including her, or does she just open her checkbook to the IRS? Think Not!
And on Hillary all I am doing is quoting opinions of about a dozen of some of the best former U. S. Attorneys. (I consider their opinion more competent than the internet, as I have pointed out before). You on the left can assume the ostrich position, but if Hillary had a (R) behind her name you would be calling for her head! You aren’t kidding anybody.
Laura O’Donnell asks Trumps daughter about Trump abusing women. The left wing press would never ask Chelsea Clinton that question about her dad! Just more putrid left wing bias, progressive liberalism is the bane of the world.
Al Gore made predictions on “Global Warming” ten years ago, which is due this month.
An independent survey shows that not one of them has come true, (I.e. No polar ice caps. In fact, the Antarctic ice cap is bigger than before.)
Mac McKay, Lakeport
