Giffords Condemns Congressional Pay Raises

Southern Arizonan Calls on Congress to Balance the Budget Before Hiking Salaries

TUCSON — Gabrielle Giffords criticized Congress for taking a $3,300 pay raise this week that increases salaries to $168,500 per year, and called on Congress to suspend all salary increases until the budget is balanced.

“Congress doesn’t deserve a pay raise. In the Arizona Legislature, we balanced the budget every year. As a small business owner, our books had to balance. Arizona families all know the hard choices that must be made to live within our means, but Washington isn’t listening to the people,” said Giffords. “Congress has racked up massive amounts of red ink — almost $30,000 for every man, woman, and child in America — which amounts to a massive birth tax that puts every child in debt the day they are born. This is wrong,” Giffords said. “In Congress, I will oppose pay raises until we have balanced the budget, and fight to bring fiscal responsibility back to Washington.”

In addition to pledging to oppose pay raises, Giffords’ plan to balance the budget also includes the following:

• eliminating corporate welfare that puts special interests ahead of taxpayers — such as the billions in tax breaks given to oil and gas companies, and Medicare Part D, which guarantees drug company profits.
• supporting a transparent and open process for earmarks, so that pork isn’t slipped into bills in the middle of the night, like the $223 million bridge that connects a small Alaskan town to an island of 50 people.
• targeting government waste €“ like Halliburton and other highly connected companies pilfering money from Iraq contracts — and rooting it out of the budget.

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