Let's Talk About Congressional Salaries Plus Their Spending...

Someone let me have one of these jobs! 

Our Senators' and Representatives' base salaries are $174,000!  If you happen to be the majority or minority leaders in Congress, before perks, you get the piddly sum of $193,400!  The Speaker of the House and Chief Justices pull down a mere $223,500!(c)

But wait!  That's not all!  (Do I sound like one of those commercials on TV?)  Each representative is allotted almost $750,000 to hire up to 18 staffers and 4 temps!  Senators, depending on the size of their state, get from almost $1.7 MILLION to over $2.8 MILLION for administrative and clerical assistance!  BUT, they also receive over $450,000 additional funds to hire up to 3 Legislative Assistants!(b)

AND THERE'S MORE!  Every U.S. Representative spends over $1.4 MILLION to in excess of $1.9 Million dollars a annually NOT COUNTING THEIR SALARY!(a)  However, each Senator spends almost $2.3 Million to over $3.7 MILLION dollars!(b)

Although my little calculator's screen could barely hold the figures, our 435 U.S. Representatives' annual budget, WITHOUT THEIR PERSONAL SALARIES, is up to $826,500,000.00.  If that is not enough to take your breath away, the additional expenses of our 100 U.S. Senators, a whopping $370,000,000.00, makes a grand total of $1,196,500,000.00!

EGADS!!!!  These figures are enormous!  Let me line them up:

U.S. Representatives Annual Spending Allowance    $   826,500,000.00
U.S. Senators' Annual Spending Allowance                $   370,000.000.00
U.S. Congressional Salaries                                         $     93,391,000.00
                                                               Total                   $1,289,891,000.00 
                                                                                     (This is over a BILLION!)

OK...The bulk of our representatives are millionaires.  The others are EXTREMELY wealthy.  Maybe these numbers seem to be acceptable budgets in their realm of thinking, BUT NOT IN THIS COUNTRY!  When the median household income in this country is $49,777(d), and most citizens are cutting back on travel, food, clothing, medical, etc., the belt-tightening needs to start in Washington with our Congress...

a.  http://disbursements.house.gov/faqs.shtml#3966DA_265677
b:  http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Congressional_offices_and_staff
c:  (http://www.senate.gov/CRSReports/crs-publish.cfm?pid='0E%2C*PL%5B%3D%23P%20%20%0A)
d:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_household_income