SPRINGFIELD: Pay raise may be out for lawmakers

[Robbien]

I know this sounds like local politics, but it really isn't. Illinois budget problems are the same happening in every state as states are being asked to pick up expenses previously paid by feds, such as:

SPRINGFIELD - An Illinois House committee on Sunday gutted a supplemental spending bill that contained money to give lawmakers and other top state officials a 15.6 percent pay raise.

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Some parts of the supplemental bill are needed, Hannig acknowledged, such as money to allow the Department of Military Affairs to pay utility bills at its facilities. A cut in federal funding is leaving the department unable to meet that obligation.

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the supplemental bill included $9.5 million to buy medicine for emergency crews in the event of a bird flu epidemic, $4.1 million to give 3 percent raises to some social service providers, $3.1 million to buy equipment for police to videotape interrogations and $45,000 to buy medals for National Guard veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts.

http://www.pjstar.com/stories/010707/PM__BC1LK4OD.045.shtml

[northofdenali]

1. Good! Fed. workers only got 2.5% -

and most people in the civilian fields got nothing.

If our federal lawmakers pass themselves a raise, without raising the Minimum Wage - they may have another revolution at hand.

Yes, all states are having problems; a direct result of the trillion-dollar shrub invasion of Iraq.