House Awards Bonuses to High Ranking Employees

Galling hypocrisy.

A month after they voted to punish some corporate executives for taking hefty bonus payouts, members of the House of Representatives quietly gave their own staffers a new potential bonus by making even their top-earning aides eligible for taxpayer dollars to repay their student loans.

Those 'top-earning' aides make around $150K/ year. One of the commenters at the story link noted that here the government is giving its employees money to pay off what are (likely) government loans in the first place.

Loans on which the interest is no longer even tax-deductible for us ordinary suckers taxpayers on the outside.

Spokesman Jeff Ventura:

"We regard this benefit as a major job recruitment and retention tool," he said. "Even in a bad job market, we compete with the private sector for the kind of talented employees government work today demands."

Emphasis me. Now, why would anyone think that Congress is out of touch?

Sincerely, guys. You don't have to give bonuses to your staff this year. They're not in danger of being recruited away anytime soon.

I dare say you could reduce their pay right now. Hell, institute a schedule of mandatory beatings. Wouldn't matter. They're not going anywhere.

If they have a better grasp of the situation out here in Reality Land than you do, you couldn't pry them out of their nice government gigs right now with a crowbar.

Morons, please do check out the comments at the story link. Some of them are pretty good. Cannot help but notice that no lefties have shown up to defend or minimize this move.

UPDATE: Spouse of former Hill staffer, in comments:

Are you f***ing kidding me??? These top Congressional staff jobs are fought over. They get HUNDREDS of resumes every time one comes open, and almost none of them are ever advertised. Work for a Congressman for 4 years - walk out into a $200,000+ lobbying job. These a**holes don't need student loan payoffs.

Great.

posted by Laura. at 01:26 PM

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