If congressional pay was indexed to inflation or unemployment you’d see a whole different attitude from Congress.

Congressional pay starts at $174,000.00 & increase for position and committee appointments.

For them $5.00 gas isn't a burdon like it is for folks earning much less.

Not to mention that the majority in Congress were millionaires before they went into office.

They ARE NOT us!

— Otis B – (@RokBuck) June 12, 2022

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Hawkins: I have had the rare privilege of providing expert testimony at hearings in the U.S. House and Senate. Over a year ago, I warned representatives on the House Committee on Oversight and Reform about the inflationary effects of reckless government spending and the proposed Green New Deal. A few of the Democrats attending the hearing listened attentively, but others outright dismissed my warnings as partisan theater (Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, D-NY, remarked in response to my warning “[A]nother day, another line about Green New Deal hysteria”)

I of course was not alone in issuing these warnings because the likely outcome of the spending and energy policies enacted and proposed by the current Congress and President Joe Biden were obvious. Larry Summers, treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton, and someone President Barack Obama considered as a possible Federal Reserve chair warned that Biden’s $2 Trillion spending plan would have dire consequences.

I am a man of modest intellect who has been blessed with an outstanding education. As a part of that education, I learned the law of supply and demand. If the demand for a good is higher than the supply of that good the price will rise. Democrats borrowed money and gave it to consumers who weren’t working (producing) and so demand for goods grew faster than production of goods. At the same time, Democrats implemented policies that intentionally limited the supply of oil and gas when the demand for oil and gas was as high as it’s ever been. High demand across an economy with low supply across an economy leads to higher prices.

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The effect on Americans, particularly poor and working-class Americans, is devastating. Over $5,000 per household, over 25% of the buying power for a poor household of 3, has evaporated and there is no end in sight.

The political math for how we got here is even easier than economics. Government spending buys votes. Congress is incentivized to spend as much as it can borrow and then kind of just hope for the best, even in the face of warnings from important folks like Summers and well-meaning though less important folks like me. We can change that today.

Across the government, there are benefits tied (in a positive direction) to inflation through the consumer price index so that Americans are not punished for inflation. I propose we tie congressional salary (in a negative way) to inflation for the express purpose of punishing Congress for reckless economic policy. The process is more straightforward than one would think.

The Federal Reserve has not established a formal inflation target, but their view is that an acceptable inflation rate is 2% or a little below it. For the entire year following a recorded inflation rate above 2%, salaries for members of Congress should be adjusted for the following year to mirror the relative impact of inflation on poor and working-class Americans.

This piece was written by Jim Gunner on July 27, 2022. It originally appeared in LifeZette and is used by permission.

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