They feel our pain -- not

With the country shedding jobs like a dog sheds hair, in addition to the still employing working class Americans who are seeing their hours cut and their bonuses eliminated, Congress gets a raise.

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.

Cagily, the system is set up to award the pay hikes automatically, sparing our Congresslizards the shame of having to go on record to give themselves more money when the rest of America is trying to figure out how to pay the bills. As Steve Ellis of Taxpayers for Common Sense says, "They have it set up so that it’s wired so that you actually have to undo the pay raise rather than vote for a pay raise."

I'm sure I don't need to point out the hypocrisy here and it occurs to me as we contemplate how to "change the way Washington works," automatic pay raises would be a good place to start. If they need more money, fine, but let them make their case for a raise the same as the rest of America has to, by asking the boss -- which is this case is the taxpayer.

[More posts daily at The Newshoggers and The Detroit News.]