[at-l] OT: Humor

[jbullar1 at twcny.rr.com (Jim Bullard)]

Are we still on this? Sigh.

At 11:11 AM 2/9/2004 -0500, Bror8588@aol.com wrote:
> > Ya know, not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago and our nation was
> > the most prosperous in the world, had absolutely no national debt, had the
> > largest middle class in the world and Mom stayed home to raise the kids.
> > What the hell happened?
>
>Didn't the Legislative Branch work part time?  I believe that they still do
>though they would say that fund raising is part of their job.  When you give
>people the opportunity to raise their own salaries it is inevitable that they
>will.

Actually Congress can't raise it's own salary, only that of future 
Congresses. The twenty seventh amendment prohibits any pay raise that 
Congress passes (and the President signs) from taking effect until a new 
Congress is elected. You may argue that most all of them get re-elected 
anyway but whose fault is that? That amendment BTW was first proposed in 
1789 along with those that became the Bill of Rights but it wasn't finally 
ratified by the states until 1992. Congress does meet only part of the 
year, longer now than in the beginning, but they have always been "in 
office" for the entire term of they were elected to serve.