Mostly automatic pay hikes

A letter writer who recently admitted he wasn't aware that Congress had decided to withhold its expected pay raise shouldn't feel too badly about his error. Since Congress adopted automatic pay hikes in 1989, its members have only occasionally declined pay increases. So it was reasonable to expect that Congress would have followed its typical, self-enhancing routine.

For the most part, Congress has accepted the automatic increases guaranteed by the so-called "Ethics Reform Act," and has seen its pay steadily rise from $86,000 in 1989 to $169,300 this year. Congress has been deaf to the repeated insistence of a few members to require an annual vote on a pay hike. Its members simply don't want to take the political heat inherent in a mandatory vote to raise their own salaries.

Instead, Congress has chosen a method to automatically enhance its pay every year without discussion and without a vote, except in the rare instances when a pay hike isn't politically palatable. That was the case this year, during a recession accompanied by high unemployment.

But wait till next year. A return to the automatic congressional pay hike would be as sure a sign of an improving economy as a robin is of spring.