That always sounded like “I stand correct” to me. Which pissed me off to no end, due to intuitive empathy reading the emotion and then reading the logical line.

Now consider the 71st Congress, the last one elected before the Depression hit. Their legislative calendar ran over 223 days (i.e. about 45% time over two years) and they were paid a salary of $9,000 a year. At the time, nominal domestic product per capita was about $690 per year. So, they’re paid 13x nominal domestic product per capita per year. A figure 13x nominal domestic product per capita would be about $760,000 a year in our own time, more than most corporate CEOs are paid. Pretty sweet deal given that you’re only clocking in 45% time (and the dimension and scope of the federal government made oversight responsibilities and constituent pressure that much smaller). Of course, they did not have fringes.

IMO, travel expenses for members and staff to and from any locus other than the home district better come out of committee budgets or the chamber budget, not member budgets. Travel expenses covered by member budgets ought to cover the member and a restricted menu of his relatives (spouse, juvenile dependents, and perhaps an elder dependent). Travel expense allowances for staff ought to approach zero; put them on short leaves and pay the bills out of campaign funds if you just have to have them moving around. Franking privileges are unobjectionable, although they do have unfortunate effects. Medical and long-term care insurance for federal employees (including members of Congress) is properly financed out of assessments on their total compensation and properly incorporates high deductibles. Retirement programs for federal employees (including members of Congress) are properly defined contribution programs.

I do not remember where I got that $1.00 dollar a day figure, but it might have been from the reading something in the Annals of Congress, a predecessor to the Congressional Record.

Here is the most recent CRS material on this issue, which does give the figure of $6 dollars per day paid to Representatives and Senators while Congress was in session—

See https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/97-1011.pdf

This says a per diem of $6.00. During the period running from 1789 to 1815, the number of days Congress would be in session during its term varied wildly, but tended to bounce around a set point of about 230 days. So, a member of Congress could expect to be paid about $680 in a typical year. Nominal incomes were a great deal lower then than now. I think that’s about 6x what nominal per capita income would have been at that time. A contextually similar sum today would be about $350,000 a year.

In the country at large today, about 20% of a typical worker’s compensation package is in the form of fringes, and some people have expense accounts. Not sure what the deal is for members of Congress right now. My guess would be that ca. 1802, their cash compensation was about all they received.

The pay of today’s members of Congress is substantial, but they have a lot of legitimate expenses, and may have to maintain two residences–one in Washington and one in their home state.

There are members of Congress who were already rich when they were elected, but many candidates were not rich.

Considering all of these annual expenses, you would not think that the salary they receive would make them rich, yet, it is amazing how many members of Congress arrive relatively poor, and somehow end up retiring rich.

I wonder how that happens?

A fuller quote (the anarchy Jefferson writes about is Shay’s rebellion):

“Yet where does this anarchy exist? Where did it ever exist, except in the single instance of Massachusets? And can history produce an instance of a rebellion so honourably conducted? I say nothing of it’s motives. They were founded in ignorance, not wickedness. God forbid we should ever be 20. years without such a rebellion. The people can not be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. We have had 13. states independant 11. years. There has been one rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a century and a half for each state. What country before ever existed a century and half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve it’s liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it’s natural manure.”

I’m not sure if Jefferson was being sarcastic at all. I think he sees violence, even when unjustified by the facts, as a natural process which serves as a warning to the powerful. Of course, in the current situation, I believe it is the left which has a misunderstanding of the facts so, yes, the whole quote does not fully describe my thoughts on the 2020 election.

Interestingly, the letter also contains something of a “Mr. Smith” scenario.

“Wonderful is the effect of impudent and persevering lying. The British ministry have so long hired their gazetteers to repeat and model into every form lies about our being in anarchy, that the world has at length believed them, the English nation has believed them, the ministers themselves have come to believe them, and what is more wonderful, we have believed them ourselves. “

Everything you saw or read about how amazing life in California was, until recently, pretty much true. I feel fortunate to have lived there for 40+ years.

I’m grateful to have lived in that California and I’m grateful at my age to have so little nostalgia.

I find it curious in my late sixties that I have so little nostalgia. Yet in my 20s and 30s I was often overcome with it. I would have figured it the other way around.

** The massive number of deaths from overdoses/opioids that are ravaging our communities, all across this country—according to government statistics, total 2017 U.S. overdose deaths were 72,237 vs. by comparison, the 58,220 war deaths that the U.S. incurred during the entire 20 year course of the Vietnam War—and the responsibility of the drug producers in China and elsewhere, the largely Hispanic smugglers that move there drugs across our borders, and the supposedly “ethical” drug companies who knowingly pushed these highly addictive drugs on patients.

** Hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens invading our country, and the great number of crimes committed by many these illegal aliens, who clog our Federal prisons—many of these criminal illegal aliens, I note, having been deported numerous times. Not to mention the tremendous burdens—financial and otherwise—that such a massive influx of illegals puts on our society, culture, and economy.

** Reforming our Immigration system.

** Funding for the Wall.

** Growing attacks against police nationwide, and the increase in policemen who are killed.

** The rise of homeless encampments in the major Democrat run cities on the West Coast and elsewhere, and the prevalence of and increases in crime, drug addiction, mental illness, disease–Typhus, and TB, with perhaps Bubonic Plague to follow, and the general decline in living conditions for ordinary citizens they have brought with them.

** There is the rise of political violence in this country, spearheaded by the masked thugs of ANTIFA.

** There is the rise of Leftist politically correct speech and conduct codes on college and university campuses—which seek to destroy the open debate and inquiry that the university was founded on—and whose restoration is essential if this institution is to survive.

** There is the rise and dominance of of giant technology companies like Apple, and the parallel rise of social media companies like Google, Facebook and Twitter—all of which threaten every individual’s Privacy, Independence, and their Constitutionally guaranteed rights of Free Speech and Debate, our Republic, and our political system.

** There is the easily foreseeable and massive wave of tens of millions of low skilled jobs that are about to be automated out of existence by the combination of AI and robots.

Is there any real discussion and debate, any planning, some massive program in the works for dealing with and retraining or otherwise dealing with these millions of soon to be out of work people?

As far as I can see, no.

FDR was adamantly against unionizing gov. workers, but JFK did it anyway. I’m just guessing, but I think the Kennedys knew exactly what the consequences of that move was going to be.

Gingrich’s Contract with America promised to make congress live by exactly the same rules and regs. that were required of ordinary citizens. It was actually implemented in some form or other, but I don’t know the details or how it seems to have faded away.