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Thanks to a backroom deal, members of the House of Representatives can now claim automatic reimbursement of $258 a night for lodging expenses and $79 a day for meals in D.C. — even if they don’t spend a dime. But though House members can pocket up to $34,000 a year in additional tax dollars, it’s not a pay raise, because politicians are entitled to use false labels for everything they do.

by James Bovard

“A good politician is almost as rare as an honest burglar,” once quipped H. L. Mencken. After the shenanigans around the latest congressional pay increase, America’s burglars should file a posthumous libel suit against Mencken for that disparaging comparison.

There is a pity party in Washington: You weren’t invited, but you’ll pay the bill.

The Constitution’s 27th Amendment, ratified in 1992, prohibits any law “varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives” from taking effect “until an election of representatives shall have intervened.” But the Constitution wasn’t permitted to impede the latest insider raid on the U.S. Treasury.

Thanks to a backroom deal, members of the House of Representatives can now claim automatic reimbursement of $258 a night for lodging expenses and $79 a day for meals in D.C. — even if they don’t spend a dime. But though House members can pocket up to $34,000 a year in additional tax dollars, it’s not a pay raise, because politicians are entitled to use false labels for everything they do.

Members of Congress are whining that they receive only $174,000 a year — more than triple the average U.S. salary and higher pay than 93 percent of what other Americans pocket. And it is a part-time job: The House of Representatives will be in session just 117 days this year. The New York Times reported, “Lawmakers, especially younger ones, have voiced concern about being able to afford to live in Washington, where they spend about a third of the year.” Few Americans get six-figure salaries for part-time gigs.

Admittedly, some new members of Congress are not too bright and maybe didn’t realize the job would require spending time in Washington. The poster boy for the pay raise was newly elected Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.), who complained he got turned down for an apartment in D.C. because of his “really bad” credit rating (in his own words). He wailed about his congressional gig: “This ain’t meant for people who don’t already have money.” But it wasn’t voters’ fault that Frost didn’t pay his bills. Actually, being a deadbeat is good job training for being a congressman and spending trillions of dollars the government doesn’t possess.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) moaned that “Congress structures itself to exclude and push out the few working-class people who do get elected.” Congressional salaries are far higher than average Americans’ pay in part to cover the extra cost of spending time in Washington. But House members wanted more.

The origins of the raise

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