Hold onto your hats, but Congress needs a pay raise

Members of the House and Senate haven’t received any bump to their $174,000 annual salary since 2009, and that’s bad for the country. The 27th Amendment stipulates that lawmakers may not raise their own pay — just that of future Congresses. Friday’s new Congress should do so for the next.

As a new Congress is sworn in Friday, this might seem like a bad time to talk about raising federal lawmakers’ pay. A government funding package failed last month, throwing Washington into a frantic effort to keep the government open, in part because it included a small pay increase for members of Congress.

Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, posted falsely that the provision meant members would get a 40 percent pay increase — more than 10 times the reality. His post has 34 million views. Following his lead, President-elect Donald Trump wrote that “this is not a good time for Congress to be asking for pay increases.”

Front-line members joined the chorus: Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Washington) said a pay boost, “any way you slice it,” would be “bananas.”

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