In early June, our representatives in Congress voted themselves a $3,300 pay raise by not voting against it.
Allow me to elaborate. Each year, Congress members get money force fed to them because it's the law. Back in the day, congressmen received up to $2,000 for giving public speeches. Soon, congressmen realized they could make more money doing speeches than passing good laws.
So, they came up with the Ethics Reform Act of 1989 to give Congress a 2 percent cost-of-living raise each year.
The only way this raise isn't given is if an elected official goes well out of his or her way to petition against it.
If every business doled out an automatic raise like that, capitalism wouldn't exist and strip club owners would rule the world.
The worst part about it is, while Congress was refraining from voting against its own pay increase, it did vote against two other increases: Democratic and Republican bills for raising the federal minimum wage. Ironically, that may have been the closest the two parties have been to agreeing on anything this year.
Yes, it was the same meeting. And yes, they voted against what would benefit the greater population -- raising the minimum wage either $2.10 or $1.10, and adding select benefits.
Never mind that the total of what congress has received from just seven years of these annual 2 percent salary increases is almost triple what a typical minimum wage worker makes in a year, $10,712.
Congress could benefit the greater good by raising minimum wage to $7.25 or $6.25 with select health benefits.
The opposing side will say that small businesses will not be able to survive if a pay increase were mandated. They will be unable to support a higher wage for workers and therefore go under.
However, this argument is not credible, as the state of the poor in our country is sub-par. The benefits of raising minimum wage would solve a few problems:
More Americans could invest more heavily in the economy because they would have the means to buy more and save more. People would take greater interest in stock or invest more in banks.
People would feel they were being treated more fairly by their government and, most importantly, have more confidence in their representatives.
Many families on the high-end of the welfare scale will be bumped over, taking them off the government's payroll and enabling them to make their money for themselves.
Raising the minimum wage would stimulate the economy and create more customers and revenue for American businesses, as well as stop the need to compete with cheap imports.
Businesses could make up for higher employee wages by increased sales. The number of people under the poverty line would decline and Americans would feel better about their government's concern for their well-being.
It will be difficult for Congress to do this because it takes a conscience to help others before you help yourself. I believe they can find theirs hidden behind a hefty stack of taxpayers' money.