You’re right, Pejman, I’m angry about this display of hypocrisy by Congress:

A crumbling economy, more than 2 million constituents who have lost their jobs this year, and congressional demands of CEOs to work for free did not convince lawmakers to freeze their own pay.

Instead, they will get a $4,700 pay increase, amounting to an additional $2.5 million that taxpayers will spend on congressional salaries, and watchdog groups are not happy about it. …

In the beginning days of 1789, Congress was paid only $6 a day, which would be about $75 daily by modern standards. But by 1965 members were receiving $30,000 a year, which is the modern equivalent of about $195,000.

Currently the average lawmaker makes $169,300 a year, with leadership making slightly more. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) makes $217,400, while the minority and majority leaders in the House and Senate make $188,100.

Lawmakers in both parties have done nothing productive on the economic front for years, and they share the blame for the current recession because of their inaction in the face of serious problems on the lending and housing fronts. They don’t deserve raises; they deserve pay cuts. And if they don’t fix the mess they helped make, they should get layoff notices in the form of mass electoral defeats come November 2010.