Third Topic: National Debt; Idea 2: Dock the Pay of Those Who Watched It Happen

If a car dealership has a salesman who watches someone drive off with a car, they may forgive it once. When the half the dealership is gone, you don't give them a bonus. If anything, you cut their pay.

Congress, the SEC, the Fed, Presidents past - they watched CDO's, Madoff, Stanford, Merrill Lynch move along. So they get pay raises?

Idea 2: Cut the pay of those at the top of government, and don't let them decide on their pay.

Congressman are paid from $174,000 to over $223,000. The president received a huge pay raise in 2000 - from $200K to $400K, plus $50K in an expense account, $100K in travel, and $19K in entertainment expenses. They all get pensions if they are in office for more than 5 years (currently 413 people, at $22 million). The SEC chairman, the Fed chairs - they also make over $150K. Do they deserve it?

Cut the pay of the members of Congress by $20,000 a year, that's $9,000,000 a year. Cut the presidential pay back to $200K (yes, they need the expense accounts - they represent us diplomatically), and get rid of their pensions (have you heard of a poor president?). Require any congressman who takes part in lobbying/consulting after leaving office to lose the right to all future pension pay. And cut the salaries of Cabinet members, heads of the SEC, the Fed, of federal judges, of every single member of the federal government who is making more than $150K, by at least 10%. And make pay raises for Congress allowed for cost-of-living only; anything above that must be submitted to referendum and national ballot.

Some would argue that we'd be penalizing people who may not have been responsible for what is at hand. Some would argue that it's spitting in the ocean. Some would say why bother.

I would say that the federal government, as a whole, has taken missteps over the last 30 years. I would say that belt-tightening would be seen as, at the least, a symbolic gesture that the current government understands what the common man is going through. I would say that members of government who use their elected positions as a point of profit after they leave office don't deserve any extra compensation. I would say if your difficulties in life include the mortgages on your 2nd and 3rd houses, you don't understand the principle of public service.

And, even if the budget is only saved $100 million a year by these measures, that's thousands of employees - people at mid-level positions who would like to be employed. A little sacrifice at the top would be highly appreciated by those who toil daily.

Obama was at least smart enough to cap salaries in the West Wing. Congress has yet to pass a resolution refusing the their annual cost-of-living pay raise. If they can't be trusted to be fiscally appropriate now, at the least they can be regulated in the future. If they complain about their pay raises now, they won't dare show their faces at re-election.