Pay Raise For Judges Tucked Into BAILOUT PLAN

[HARDCORE]

[media]http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081210/ap_on_go_co/judicial_pay_raise[/media]

WASHINGTON – If the $14 billion bailout plan for U.S. automakers passes, it will help more than just Ford, Chrysler and General Motors. Federal judges would get a pay raise, as well.
The raise — an annual cost of living adjustment, or COLA — would bring U.S. District court judges up to par with members of Congress, who will receive an almost $5,000 boost on Jan. 1. District judges and lawmakers now earn $169,300 a year but are expected to be awarded a 2.8 percent raise next year, said Dick Carelli, a spokesman for the Administrative Office of the United States Courts.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., insisted that the judicial pay raise go into the automaker loan measure, which is the only item of business on Congress' lame-duck agenda.

Under ethics legislation enacted almost two decades ago, members of Congress get a cost of living raise automatically, but they have to vote to give judges an identical raise. Because the spending bill covering U.S. courts has not passed, the step is necessary if judges are going to get their COLA.

The Senate passed the judicial pay measure as a separate bill in November, but the House never acted. A House Democratic leadership aide said that while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., supports the pay raise, it was difficult for the House to hold a stand-alone vote in the midst of a recession to increase the pay for people making far more than most workers.

As a result, Reid has taken the unusual step of linking the obscure but important judicial pay issue to the unpopular auto bailout.

There is concern among many policymakers that judges are not paid enough relative to the importance of their offices, and in six of the past 13 years, judges have been denied their pay raise as lawmakers opted not to take their own COLA.

Even with the raise, judges earn far less than lawyers at big firms, just as members of Congress make less than many lobbyists.

If the pay measure fails to go through this year, judges are likely to get the increase as one of the first pieces of business next year.

[HARDCORE]

Pay Raises For Judges and Lawmakers Being Tied To Big Three Bailout?

If any other nation on Earth attempted this type of economic rape, especially during dangerously trying times, they might well be treated to a rebellion of sorts. As a matter of fact, Our Founding Fathers (Especially Thomas Jefferson) have got to be rolling over in their graves in disgust!


“So what is next?” Will the D.C. bordellos and gin mills that service these gaseous, already overpaid bureaucratic buffoons, also be demanding pay raises and bailouts as well?


Here we are at war with two nations, and maybe a third in short order, a new president not even sworn in as yet, multi-billion dollar bailouts being gifted to every sobbing corporation who pulls the right strings, and our economy diving through the floorboards, and yet every already affluent laggard, with his festering claws buried deep into the hide of “Our Nation and Her Leadership”, is trying to squeeze out the last bloody red cent from the bleached-out copses of We The People! “Is this the kind of change that both political parties have been swearing that they embrace?”



Before long, and unless things change immediately, we may be turned into a country of “Les Miserables!” A catastrophe brought upon ourselves by our never-ending belief that the next administration has always got to be better than the last?



VERITAS (Truth)

[reconeil]

Well,...so much for what deceptively passed-off to The World as a so-called: "Democracy"
and/or; "Government of The People, By The People and For The People", my friend.

We actually live in A Government of The Politician, By The Politician & For The Politician.
Could've rightfully made it instead: Government of The Politician & Journalist, By The... .
But, thought such would take up too much space


In fact, the only people being political forced (some say: "Dictated") to tough it out or;
"Tighten their belts" for whatever reasons America, are the Private Sector Middle Class
Vast Majority of U.S. Taxpayers and/or; "We The (Schnooks),...AS ALWAYS.

The Rich since rich obviously never have to do without anything.

The Poor (Illegals inclusive) will never do without since Big Brother so decrees it must be so.

Political Leaders & Appointees will never do without,...and why should they?
They control all of MY/YOUR/OUR Money. Soooooooo,..."If you got it, flaunt it".

Sadly if America's current Economic Debacle were turn even worst or into a Depression,...
all Political Leaders would bipartisan think nothing of cavalierly giving themselves and all
Political Appointees, Staffs & Agencies RAISES, while the entire Middle Class Private Sector;
"Toughs-it-out" and/or gets taxed-out-of-their-socks,...AS USUAL.

Neil