After taking ten years to raise the federal minimum wage from $5.15 an hour to a whooping $7.25 over a two-year period, members of the House of Representatives have decided to reward themselves by raising their own wages --- again.

Despite becoming even less popular than President Bush - practically making them about as popular as cancer - Democrats and Republicans are calling for an approximate pay raise of $4,400 - increasing their salaries to almost $170,000.

Most members support the pay raise as a means of retaining experienced lawmakers and of making sure that Congress is not simply dominated by wealthy people.

Because if you can't beat them, join them.

Minority Whip Roy Blunt, R-Mo on the increase:

"Every member has some obligation to the institution for the compensation to, as much as possible, keep pace with inflation."

They're obligated to make sure that their own compensation is at pace with inflation, yet it took them ten years to try to do the same with the federal minimum wage.

Many lawmakers maintain homes both in the expensive Washington housing market and back in their districts. On most days, they meet with lobbyists making far more than they do.

I would feel bad for them if they weren't the ones enabling the lobbyists.

After promising to fight President Bush on his Iraqi policies only to ultimately bitch up and let him have his way as usual, continuing to cut funding for social programs, and doing a whole bunch of nothing outside of this one bare-minumum accomplishment on minimum wage, they decide that they're due for another raise. If their wages were based on job performance, they'd be on Monster.ccom looking for a new line of work by now.