Selfish Legislating At Its Worst
Letter to the Lake Charles American Press
Dear editor:
It is said that timing is everything. Evidently our legislators in Baton Rouge have evidently no sense of it.
Do they not realize what is going on in our state, nation and in the world today?
According to the American Automobile Association regular, unleaded gasoline prices nationwide now average $4.05 a gallon, and the future is bleak with a chance of rising to $5.00. As a result, many people are having major problems traveling to work, summer vacations are being cancelled, cities and towns are strapped for cash to fuel their service and police vehicles and people are having to do without other necessities in order to cover the cost of gasoline. On top of this, food prices have sky rocketed, inflation is starting to creep further and further up, unemployment has had its biggest jump in years, home foreclosures have hit an all-time high and the value of the American dollar has plummeted. The average American, lower and middle income class, is hurting.
So what does the Louisiana Senate selfishly do? They triple their pay package for a nearly $34,000 annual raise. Their annual pay, not including annual expense allowances and per-diem, will rise from $16,800 to $50,700. It wasn’t even debated on the Senate floor. On top of that, they have tied their future raises to automatically increase whenever the U.S. Congress increases their inflated pay.
This isn’t a question of value and their worth to the state, but rather one of timing. You don’t help yourself to the public trough when your constituents are worried about the present and the future.
Timing? Our Senate, and probably the House to follow, has no idea what the word means.
Dear editor:
It is said that timing is everything. Evidently our legislators in Baton Rouge have evidently no sense of it.
Do they not realize what is going on in our state, nation and in the world today?
According to the American Automobile Association regular, unleaded gasoline prices nationwide now average $4.05 a gallon, and the future is bleak with a chance of rising to $5.00. As a result, many people are having major problems traveling to work, summer vacations are being cancelled, cities and towns are strapped for cash to fuel their service and police vehicles and people are having to do without other necessities in order to cover the cost of gasoline. On top of this, food prices have sky rocketed, inflation is starting to creep further and further up, unemployment has had its biggest jump in years, home foreclosures have hit an all-time high and the value of the American dollar has plummeted. The average American, lower and middle income class, is hurting.
So what does the Louisiana Senate selfishly do? They triple their pay package for a nearly $34,000 annual raise. Their annual pay, not including annual expense allowances and per-diem, will rise from $16,800 to $50,700. It wasn’t even debated on the Senate floor. On top of that, they have tied their future raises to automatically increase whenever the U.S. Congress increases their inflated pay.
This isn’t a question of value and their worth to the state, but rather one of timing. You don’t help yourself to the public trough when your constituents are worried about the present and the future.
Timing? Our Senate, and probably the House to follow, has no idea what the word means.
posted by Sam Schoolsky | 11:24 AM
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