It's Hard to be A Republican Plutocrat on just $172,000* a year

"If inequality is at a much higher level - who cares?" ~ Brit Hume, Faux News

Phil Gingrey of Georgia recently complained he was "stuck" in Washington DC making only $172,000 a year. This follows Sean Duffy of Wisconsin complaining in 2011 that he was struggling on his congressional salary. And it's understandable because the people they are carousing with are the type who have no problem dropping $700 on two bottles of Pinot Noir as Hedge Fund Vulture Clifford S. Asness and Deficit Svengoolie Paul Ryan did on their wine date a few years back.

In 2009, Gingrey misused $400 dollars of campaign monies to renew his Georgia medical license. While it's a small amount it's a fee which a regular taxpayer couldn't just expect to be covered by somebody else. Also it was shown that for his 2010 re-election campaign Gingrey raised $1,400,000 dollars and his re-election campaign paid thousands of dollars for expenses incurred by Gingrey.

Prior to 2010, Gingrey had a leased Chevy Tahoe at $768 a month, he turned that in when the lease ran out for a Honda CRV at $462 a month. Now this is paid by US Taxpayers of course so that's an expense that regular Americans pay that Gingrey doesn't.

Additionally, it was uncovered that Congress and their staff received over $2,000,000 dollars worth of Coffee and Pastries paid by the Taxpayer in 2012.

Gingrey has been in Congress since 2003, like all Federal Employees post 1984 he is enrolled into FERS. So a whole 1.3% goes to his pension, which he became invested in after 5 years.

Now Georgia is a Right-to-Work State, which means (from the Secretary of State website),

an employer can terminate an employee for good cause, bad cause or no cause at all, so long as it is not an illegal cause. 

Georgia Manufacturing is proud that their statewide Unionization was 3.4% as of 2010. So, while Gingrey has a Pension and benefits his constituents could be fired for merely complaining about their salary and the vast majority enjoy the privilege of Right-to-Work-for-Less.

Gingrey has brought non-Union Foreign owned Car Manufacturers into Georgia and gave them US Taxpayer dollars to undercut our Domestic brands as well as undercut Union labor at home. What a two-fer for the Plutocracy! Kia Motors got $324 million of Taxpayer welfare to open their 3000 worker Georgia plant in 2006.

Now, Gingrey isn't a special Republican as he represents a poor state as the median income for Georgia is $49,736 but Phil ensures that while he cuts benefits and rights for the Working Class people of his district he "works" very hard in DC to make sure the Super Rich Plutocrats with whom he hob-nobs are taken care of.

So, there's the Hard Work that Phil Gingrey has been "stuck" doing in Washington DC for his measly $174,000 a year.