House Democrats Monday considered advancing a controversial “living pay adjustment” that would increase the average salary of lawmakers by $4,500 per year; halting the amendment if it failed to secure Republican support.
“Members of Congress generally make $174,000 per year, with senior leaders earning more, and no cost-of-living adjustments have been made in the past nine years. However, vulnerable swing-state Democrats, concerned how the proposed $4,500 pay hike would look if it didn’t also have Republican support, had signed onto amendments rejecting the measure,” reports Fox News.
“It needs more discussion,” House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., told Fox News.
“It’s not even like a raise,” Ocasio-Cortez said. She called opposition to the pay increase “superficial. … This is why there’s so much pressure to turn to lobbying firms and to cash in on member service after people leave, because precisely of this issue.”
“It may be politically convenient, and it may make you look good in the short term for saying, ‘Oh we’re not voting for pay increases,’ but we should be fighting for pay increases for every American worker,” she added. “We should be fighting for a $15 minimum wage pegged to inflation so that everybody in the United States with a salary with a wage gets a cost of living increase. Members of Congress, retail workers, everybody should get cost of living increases to accommodate for the changes in our economy. And then when we don’t do that, it only increases the pressure on members to exploit loopholes like insider-trading loopholes, to make it on the back end.”
Read the full report at Fox News.
AOC DIGS IN: Ocasio-Cortez Says It’s ‘A Myth’ that Veterans’ Healthcare System is ‘Broken’
Controversial Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez doubled-down on her recent claims that the Veterans’ Affairs healthcare system “ain’t broke” Monday; saying it’s “a myth” that the VA hospitals “are broken.”
“You might have heard Fox News talking about it,” Ocasio-Cortez said, “because there is a myth that all VAs everywhere are broken.”
.@AOC Doubles Down, Says VA Problems Are a ‘Myth’ https://t.co/ibJTqWzF6K pic.twitter.com/GCFb9IpvWI
— Washington Free Beacon (@FreeBeacon) April 29, 2019
“If we can starve them of budgets and make sure they can’t do their job, then we can say the whole system should be thrown away,” she said while speaking with supporters in New York City. “I’m not going to back down from protecting the VA.”
AOC ERUPTS: Ocasio-Cortez Backs Boycott of NY POST Over 9/11 Front Page
Embattled Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez escalated her war-of-words with the NY Post this week; supporting a national boycott against her hometown paper after they posted a fierce response to Rep. Ilhan Omar’s 9/11 remarks.
“While President Trump repeatedly attacks the New York Times and other purveyors of ‘fake news,’ New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is targeting her own media foe: the New York Post,” reports Yahoo News.
“In a Sunday interview with the Yahoo News podcast ‘Skullduggery,’ the freshman New York congresswoman explained why she is endorsing a boycott of the paper organized by local Yemeni-American bodega owners, calling the Post’s attack on her friend Rep. Ilhan Omar ‘beyond the pale,’” adds the author.
Ocasio-Cortez backs boycott of New York Post over cover attacking Ilhan Omar https://t.co/sDxvZlg5v2 pic.twitter.com/ASv5alKKhL
— Yahoo News (@YahooNews) April 17, 2019
Read the full story at Yahoo News.