Ever Given Yourself A $4000 raise?

[Willow325]

I'd really like to know how much tax payers are paying in salaries for everyone who works in the government. Executive, legislative, and judicial branches. Including the military. All government employees, even the President, are public servants, yet they act as though we work for them, and not the other way around.

Members of Congress give themselves an automatic Cost of Living Adjustment, which is anywhere between $4000 to $6000 raise every two years. They say they only want a 4% raise, but in reality it is $6000 raise. If they don't vote it down, it goes through automatically.

When is the last time you gave yourself a $4000 raise without consulting your employer? Never? If you did, you went to prison. Why is it that members of our government can decide how much they are going to give themselves as a salary if they work for us?

Shouldn't we be the ones telling them how much they can earn? By the way, it's a part time job. Pretty good, huh? And then the members of our government want to cut spending, meaning cut money for programs for the people who really need them.

Shouldn't we have more of a say in what goes on in our own government. I've written to my representatives and all I ever get back is some political letter saying thank you for writing and adds something about the representative. No answer to my question, no mention if anyone has even read my letter.

I wonder if it would be possible to RECALL all the members of our government and start over. Start over with ordinary people who are not wealthy. Ordinary people who really care about this country and not how much they can steal from the tax payers. Needless to say, I have no confidence in our government nor the people running it. They make great promises before they get into office and then once they're in, they cater to the very rich and very powerful in our land. And the heck with the rest of us.

Last night I watched a program about the World War I veterans. Over 300 thousand either died, were wounded or were missing after the war ended. Those who were holding office in our government during that time, promised the veterans, BONUS PAY for every day they had spend in the war. But they couldn't collect this BONUS PAY for 20 years. Only if the veteran died, could his family collect the money immediately.

During and after the Depression, the WWI veterans tried again and again to collect the Bonus Pay promised by our Government, and again the President denied them. Over 4 million WWI veterans and their families marched on Washington, DC, in hopes of getting the Bonus pay due them. Congress finally got their act in order and wrote a bill to give the veterans their Bonus Pay, but the President vetoed it.

One veteran wrote the President stating that he should remember if he doesn't give the veterans the bonus pay promised, those 4 million votes will go to someone else the next election. Surprise, surprise. The President finally agreed to give the WWI vets their Bonus Pay, forty years after it was promised.

Willow325

[Honeybee88]

That's quite a way of looking at it, and you're right. Isn't is supposed to be a government 'of the people, by the people and for the people'?

[spiritman]

Willow,

I just wanted to share a situation that occured a couple of years ago, and it concerns our senator here in Ohio.

Some of the republicans in congress at the time were considering what they called the Nuclear option against some of the liberal democrates because they continued to hold up voting on president bushes nomoniees for supreme court positions.

Our senator here in Ohio who is suppose to be a republican; he got together with the democrates and worked out a deal, and stopped the Nuclear option, which would have taken away their filabuster power.

I called the senators office, and told his secretary that if he sided with the democrates, that he would be looking for a new job. She just laughed at me, and said; " Is that so"?.

He sided with the democrates anyway's. I'm not sure whether his secetary even told him what I said. Anyways next election

he got replaced. After they get in office sometimes I wonder if they actually care about what we think.

[irishcowboy]

it is not only with the federal government that this happens, nor with the state government either, it is corrupt all the way down to the county and townships.....

for those in/on the city counsels, it seems more and more every election that the only agenda they have is getting what they want and forget the public...

I am surprised as some of the antics that take place in the government, and they do just like any other politician does, they cover it up with a bunch of lies.....

from embezzlement to misappropriation of funds and even man power, to get their own agenda taken care of. spend thousands upon thousands on useless project, the streets go unrepaired, the trash service ( mandatory you purchase city trash service, you can not hire some one else on your own, even though it would be less expensive and also be more sanitary when they were done), spend thousands on having the sanitary sewer inspected, to ind all kinds of breaks in the piping, and causing untold amount of damage to the residencies homes while the inspection was on going, and nothing has yet been done (over three years ago since inspection).

when a church is coming into the area, they all vote it down, and give them a hard time to ensure that the church fellowship moves on "WE HAVE ENOUGH CHURCHES IN THIS TOWN" they aint doin anyone a bit of good..... all but a couple preach ear candy......

government for the people? NOT ANY MORE.... it is now a government over the people....... no different then Germany use to be, or England, or ............ well, the USE is in the same boat it was in 235 years ago...... we are not being represented, our voice is not being heard, and our taxes are continuing to rise........

government by the people? ONLY IF YOU ARE THE PEOPLE IN THE GOVERNMENT, EXCEPT THE GS5 AND LOWER OR MILITARY.

government of the people? yep, they govern the people, not the other way around...... you do as you are told.... you are not smart enough to be able to govern yourselves, and do what is right in your eyes, we will tell you what is right and wrong, and when you will go to work and when to sleep and what colour you can paint your house or how short your grass needs to be,.... and whether or not you can even raise your children with out government supervision......

The Government has even made it a law that in order to watch TV you must have a specific TV or CABLE or SATTY or you must purchase a box to hook your TV to.... WHATS IN THE BOX? WHY WAS THIS LAW PASSED WITH OUT THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE PEOPLE??????

i do not have cable, and rely on the broadcast stations for emergency weather...... the city does not blow the sirens like they should, and when a tornado goes through with out the sirens, they end up calling it anythin but a tornado... .funny,,,, i never seen straight line winds with a funnel attached to them before witness by over a dozen people....... the government lies about just about everything........

GOVERNMENT = cyoa......

[MorningGlory]

The Government has even made it a law that in order to watch TV you must have a specific TV or CABLE or SATTY or you must purchase a box to hook your TV to.... WHATS IN THE BOX? WHY WAS THIS LAW PASSED WITH OUT THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE PEOPLE??????

i do not have cable, and rely on the broadcast stations for emergency weather...... the city does not blow the sirens like they should, and when a tornado goes through with out the sirens, they end up calling it anythin but a tornado... .funny,,,, i never seen straight line winds with a funnel attached to them before witness by over a dozen people....... the government lies about just about everything........

GOVERNMENT = cyoa......

That is a 'victim' mentality. We, the people, have the power and it has been shown to be true several times in the past year or so. Take control of that power and lean on your representatives. The t.v. situation is the result of technology having moved on and the older sets don't work properly with new signals without a converter. This is not a conspiracy. Also, I fail to see the advantage to the government if they deny that a tornado happened. How does that work for them?

[EricH]

In a sense they did ask their employer. the representative from of government operates on the principle that we elect representatives then allow them to vote for us. if they are not voting our will, we can vote them out.

[irishcowboy]

The Government has even made it a law that in order to watch TV you must have a specific TV or CABLE or SATTY or you must purchase a box to hook your TV to.... WHATS IN THE BOX? WHY WAS THIS LAW PASSED WITH OUT THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE PEOPLE??????

i do not have cable, and rely on the broadcast stations for emergency weather...... the city does not blow the sirens like they should, and when a tornado goes through with out the sirens, they end up calling it anythin but a tornado... .funny,,,, i never seen straight line winds with a funnel attached to them before witness by over a dozen people....... the government lies about just about everything........

GOVERNMENT = cyoa......

That is a 'victim' mentality. We, the people, have the power and it has been shown to be true several times in the past year or so. Take control of that power and lean on your representatives. The t.v. situation is the result of technology having moved on and the older sets don't work properly with new signals without a converter. This is not a conspiracy. Also, I fail to see the advantage to the government if they deny that a tornado happened. How does that work for them?

it is called lying to the public, and avoiding the responsibility of sounding the alarm, if they have these items available for use to "protect" the public, as they say they are for, and they fail to sound them who is responsible?

no different then if a watchman was in the look out tower, and sees the enemy coming and fails to sound the alarm, the blood of the people is upon his head, if he sounds the alarm, and nothing happens, he did his job.....

when Picher Oklahoma was hit this year, they had very little warning from the authorities, and the tornado had been on the ground for about 20 miles..... several lives were lost due to almost no notice..... I had almost 30 minutes notice by way of scanner that a neighbor of one of our tenants was listening too....

the officials have, several times denied a tornado has touched down when the siren has not sounded, even though there has been witnesses siting the funnel.... one time in 1995, they claimed it straight winds, there were a couple other times to include last fall when another went through town, they again claimed straight winds, (straight winds will cause trees to fall in one direction and debre to travel in one direction, tornado's will cause trees to fall in multiple directions and debre to travel in multiple directions.... barrels from the rodeo arena were taken from the arena and found not just east of the arena(direction of travel) but also to the west and north, the roof was found to the north almost a quarter mile away, a good size tree branch was deposited a couple hundred yards from any tree.......

if you were the one that was standing watch at night, and a tornado dropped out and did damage and you failed to sound the alarm, and people were injured or killed or just lots of damage , would it not be to your advantage to say there was no tornado? or would you be more apt to say it was and stand by to be charged with dereliction of duty..... the person on watch is not the authority that gives the go ahead, it comes from their supervisor.....

listening to the scanner one evening, the dispatcher was told not to sound the alarm yet, (I heard it) the funnel was out of the clouds, but not on the ground..... they got lucky that night, for the funnel did no damage..... where would they be standing if the funnel did some damage?

as far as the original thread, sorry for the rabbit trail...... back to the main path.....

it is easier said then done, trying to get some one out of office in the city, and this is where we need to start, our own back yards........

blessings

mike