My shortest diary EVER.
Tom Davis: Phone: (202) 225-1492
Jim Moran: Phone: (202) 225-4376
Frank Wolf: Phone:(202) 225-5136

your shortest diary ever - i like the comment.

aren't congressional pay raises also tied to pay raises for other federal employees as well?  so by voting it down, you're voting down a raise for tens of thousands of other folks.

also, if they vote themselves raises, they obviously can't take effect (per the constitution) until the next session.

there's not a vote where it's an up/down on their pay - that's sorely misunderstood by most folks.  sure it sounds great, but looking at the details it's nothing like that, i believe.

also - youre quoting reid in the article.  aren't things done differently in the house and senate on this?  i think they are, so watch yourself.

* You are correct that these bills are treated differently in the House vs. Senate.  Bills appropriating and authorizing money must originate in the House. However, the Senate can certainly comment on them, rewrite them, force conference committees, and kill them.
* You are incorrect that Congressional raises must be linked to Federal raises.  In fact, Congress has been known to give itself a higher Cost of Living than regular Feds.  Generally, the law is written to impose a cap on federal salaries that may or may not include Congress and federal workers; they raise the cap to raise the highest salaries. No one can get a higher salary than the Prseident, so his generally has to be raised to raise the highest of the others.  However, the House can otherwise write their pay raise any way they want to, tied to others or not. This year, in a disingenuous ploy, the House "leadership" drafted a law that tied the minimum wage increase with a tax break for the rich. Your precious Tom Davis voted for that tax break. Then, Davis and his ilk bashed Democrats for voting against the minimum wage increase, even tho' they had to in order to defeat the tax break.  I heard Davis, so he was on the Re-thug-lican bandwagon there.  So "it wasn't a vote up/down on" a single issue, and they manipulated the system to make sure it would be that way.
*Also, let's not leave out that the REAL reasons Rethugs want a raise now is because it raises the "retirement" pay the crooks got forced  on them.

This Congress yet again demonstrates that its focus is never or has never been truly rooted in the middle class. By failing to pass virtually any significant legislation to ease the burdens that this Congress has itself been a cause upon the nations middle class it turns around and spends time considering a pay raise for themselves. Immigration, Healthcare, etc are in some desk somewhere while these folks spend their time on purely self-serving agendas. Its appauling to many of us. There are too many hard-working Americans seeing their living wage decrease, should they be trying to help them in Congress and not themselves.
Its not simply Congress with this twisted sense of reality when it comes to ethics. I find it appualing that candidates in a time when the middle class has been under such attack that all this corporate money has flooded these campaigns/and elected officials coffers.If these corporations have all this money why are they reducing salaries and eliminating health benefits for workers? Think about this. Hillary Clinton spent 30 million on a caimpaign against someone no one even can name. 30 million. I know she used it to position herself for 08 so thats the line, but think of what kind of impact that money could have on local economies. Look who gave her the money.If candidates actual took those funds and used services within their very communities instead of taking the money, forming a PAC and then sending it off to some other candidate running for office in some other part of the country. Take a look at some of the Virginia officials. Eric Cantor has been one of the best at raising money...and look where it all goes. These folks talk about "service" well it appears that on both sides there still alot of "self-service".

They also argued over giving GOP staffers 2 months severance pay. 

What struck me immediately was people who are laid off, police and security guards brought in, they are searched and there were stories of body searches in the "dot con" layoffs and escorted out the door like criminals.

People being forced to train their either H-1B insourced or offshore outsourced replacements or denied their 2 weeks of severance pay. 

The joke of 401ks and most people I know have no retirement savings whatsoever.