"Two dozen lawmakers to reject pay raise; Others defend hike, cite '99 amendment" by John C. Drake, Globe Staff | January 9, 2009
An automatic, 5.5-percent legislative pay hike coming just as state officials are weighing deep cuts in spending has put many lawmakers in a quandary, forcing them to weigh the political risks of accepting the additional $3,203 a year while many of their constituents are struggling....
House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi planned to accept the raise....
Of course he did; he's the biggest pig at the trough.
Lawmakers are set to see their pay increase from $58,237 to $61,440. The total increase in spending is $640,000, a paltry sum compared with a state budget of more than $28 billion.
A little editorializing by the Globe reporter and ed staff, no? $3000 dollars is far from paltry around here. Your elitism is showing, Globe.
The idea of the automatic raises was to avoid the political fallout legislators regularly faced in the past for approving pay hikes for themselves.
Yeah, so they amended the state constitution to automatically give themselves raises. How come I can't vote myself a raise?
But with officials weighing everything from toll hikes to sales taxes on Internet purchases to plug gaping holes in state coffers this year, some said a pay hike for lawmakers was untenable.
What, you kidding? These dum-dum liberals in this state haven't a clue as to what is going on; they sold us the income tax to save services and then they whack 'em anyway.
Hey, it's Massachusetts: if a Democrat says it, it's beyond reproach.
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