COMMENTARY | Just before being shot in the head sidelined her political career, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords had a brilliant idea. Congressional pay should be cut 5 percent. Now her staffers are reminding people of that proposal in hopes of getting it enacted.
The proposal is largely symbolic, as it would only save about $50 million over the next 10 years. But since Texas Gov. Rick Perry is also proposing to cut congressional pay, albeit by a larger amount, the idea has legs. This is especially true because invoking Giffords, a national heroine for her struggle against the effects of brain damage, has considerable power.
Enacting the Giffords pay cut proposal would show that members of Congress, who have seen their compensation and their wealth soar as the rest of us have had to cut back, are at last willing to share a little in the pain. Revelations of “honest graft” in which members of Congress have used loopholes in insider trading laws to enrich themselves have not endeared them to the public. For Congress to cut its own pay would go a long way toward restoring public trust.
In might be said that the Giffords proposal doesn’t go far enough. One might add a little feature that would provide an incentive for Congress to finally take notice of the crippling deficits that have been eroding the fiscal health of the United States. That feature would be to decrease congressional pay by five percent every year that the federal budget remains in deficit. That should incentivize Congress to get serious about cutting the deficit. One could even add as a sweetener to raise Congressional pay by five percent every year the budget is in surplus.
One could call the bill the “Gabby Giffords Deficit and Congressional Pay Reduction Act.” No doubt that there will be many members who will recoil in horror at the idea of having to cut back their own pay, especially if it is coupled with deficit reduction. The only wrinkle would be to stop Congress from just raising taxes to cover the deficit and continue spending at the level it is doing now. But that, no doubt, can be tweaked in the bill.
Sources: Great idea from Gabby Giffords: Super Committee could cut Congressional pay, Tina Korbe, Hot Air, Nov 18 2011
Rick Perry’s Government Reorganization Plan, Mark R. Whittington, Yahoo News, Nov 16, 2011
Sarah Palin Takes on Honest Graft in Congress, Mark R. Whittington, Associated Content, Nov 18, 2011