Everything's Fine
Congress has just gone through another round of “reform�, and, as always, they found nothing worth fixing. It’s very much like the corporations, with their boards of directors who are CEO’s from other companies, who decide to pay THEIR CEO’s 15 million a year so they will get the same treatment. Since everybody from Tom Delay to Hillary Clinton took money from Jack Abramoff, even though he and they have broken laws, they don’t see anything wrong with that.
Apparently neither do you.
They don’t see anything wrong with CEO’s like Kenny-Boy Lay making 40 or 50 million a year (which works out to around $180,000 each DAY) for being crooks, stealing from their employees, setting up elaborate frauds that shut off the power to entire states, holding week-long shredding parties to get rid of incriminating evidence, and sneaking into the White House to tell the good folks there how to create an “energy policy.� The average total compensation for CEO’s of 367 leading corporations was $11.8 million in 2004.
They don’t see anything wrong with letting another 11 million people illegally (yes, my dears, it’s against our laws to let people come into this country without asking, and it’s against our laws for people to give them jobs as nannies, sheetrock hangers, pallet-makers, and lettuce-pickers).
As long as they get paid. And every nickel they collect, from Abramoff, from Exxon, from the AFL-CIO pays off for the givers, or they wouldn’t keep doing it. Every nickel given to the Democratic Party, the Republican Party, the Campaign to Reelect Randy Cunningham is given with the expectation, based on experience, that they’ll get something in return. There is ALWAYS a quid pro quo.
And because that’s the case, even though you pay them, give them healthcare benefits you can only dream of, pay them incredible retirement benefits even if they’re in prison, they aren’t working for you. De-facto President Dick Cheney, already worth upwards of $30 million, reported income of $8.8 million last year, and is due for a $1.9 million refund. We only pay him $200,000, plus serious benefits: chump change.
As for Congress: in 2003 there were 413 retired members, making an average of $47,000 per year (plus bennies). Taxpayers pay around $20 million a year to them. More to their healthcare providers.
Of course we don’t HAVE to do this. We could cut the umbilicus from the public trough to the private trough by ELIMINATING campaign spending and ELIMINATING gifts to public officials. There's nothing in the Bible or the Constitution that says they have a right to accept bribes.
But until we do, don’t expect them to bite the hand that feeds them.
Comments
Good luck getting the laws changed with all the lawyers being against any change.
Posted by: Robb Willis | May 3, 2006 01:04 AM