Ok, so in light of the recent education benefit cuts to our service men and women, I am fired up!! This whole budget thing has got me thinking about the pay and benefits of our elected federal officials, then we have the appointed ones (that’s a whole other blog!). So, I went and found “Salaries of Members of Congress: Recent Actions and Historical Tables “- Wow, how eye opening! I am fired up! Just a thought about cutting the federal budget, starting from the top. This approach could weed out those who are in it for personal/political/power gains vs. servant leaders. Current pay at the federal level for most Senators, Representatives, Delegates (? – who are they and how many of them are there?) and the Resident Commissioner from Puerto Rico is $174,000/year. The only exceptions include the Speaker of the House ($223,500) and the President pro tempore of the Senate and the majority and minority leaders in the House and Senate, $193,400. Salaries remain and are frozen at this level despite the December 27, 2012 Executive Order 13635 by President Obama which attempted to increase pay, but was fortunately overruled by H.R. 8, the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, enacted January 2, 2013 kept the salaries frozen to 2009 levels. Interestingly enough they gave themselves a 25% pay increase back in 1991 due to a restriction that they could not receive speaking honoraria when both the Congress and Senate were led by Democrats. Representative salaries went from $96,600 in 1990 to $125,100 in 1/1/1991, and Senatorial salaries went from $98,400 in 1990 to $101,900 on 1/1/91 to $125,100 on August 14, 1991. Talk about a fox in the henhouse!! How often do you contact your congressional representatives and Senators? I hope you do so regularly, they need to hear from those who are paying for their salaries, holding them accountable.