Congress returned to Washington this week for what will likely be a
short session focused on doing as little as possible besides ensuring
that government doesn't shut down when the federal fiscal year ends on
Sept. 30.
Doing as little as possible has become a common theme for this Congress. Congress has failed to pass any of the 12 required appropriations bills necessary to keep government open for business. Lawmakers have also failed to pass a budget since 2009 and done little to meaningfully addressed entitlement reform or the debt.
Perhaps worst of all, Congress failed to make the spending cuts required by the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction — a.k.a. the Supercommittee — before the deadline to prevent automatic cuts. (Those automatic spending cuts will also likely never take place if this do-nothing attitude continues into the next session.)
This lack of action has led many pundits to use words such as, "lazy," "pathetic" and "failed" to describe the gridlocked Congress. Perhaps not surprisingly, Congress' job approval ratings are reaching all-time lows. In poll conducted jointly by NBC News and the Wall Street Journal in August, only 12 percent of Americans approved of the job Congress was doing.
This failure and idleness by Congress, however, hasn't stopped senators and representatives from picking up their very hefty paychecks.
Despite doing next to nothing in recent months, United States senators and representative receive a salary of $174,000 per year — a pay that puts members of Congress among the top 5 percent of wage earners in the United States. But that hefty income is only the beginning.
On top of their salary, Congressmen rake in another $111,000 per year worth of benefits. In total, congressional compensation tops $285,000 a year.
Doing as little as possible has become a common theme for this Congress. Congress has failed to pass any of the 12 required appropriations bills necessary to keep government open for business. Lawmakers have also failed to pass a budget since 2009 and done little to meaningfully addressed entitlement reform or the debt.
Perhaps worst of all, Congress failed to make the spending cuts required by the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction — a.k.a. the Supercommittee — before the deadline to prevent automatic cuts. (Those automatic spending cuts will also likely never take place if this do-nothing attitude continues into the next session.)
This lack of action has led many pundits to use words such as, "lazy," "pathetic" and "failed" to describe the gridlocked Congress. Perhaps not surprisingly, Congress' job approval ratings are reaching all-time lows. In poll conducted jointly by NBC News and the Wall Street Journal in August, only 12 percent of Americans approved of the job Congress was doing.
This failure and idleness by Congress, however, hasn't stopped senators and representatives from picking up their very hefty paychecks.
Despite doing next to nothing in recent months, United States senators and representative receive a salary of $174,000 per year — a pay that puts members of Congress among the top 5 percent of wage earners in the United States. But that hefty income is only the beginning.
On top of their salary, Congressmen rake in another $111,000 per year worth of benefits. In total, congressional compensation tops $285,000 a year.
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