WASHINGTON, D.C., USA — Today's Why Guy question comes to us from Edana.
"Why does Congress keeps its pay during a shut down?"
Edana, that's a question we get a lot. It doesn't seem fair federal workers are furloughed while those elected to the House and Senate keep getting paid, all of them, incidentally, earn $174,000 a year. They'll keep getting paid because Congressional salaries are protected by the 27th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which states, "Congress can't pass any law affecting it's pay for the current term."
Now, if Congress wants to change that 1789 Amendment they can, but they missed the Jan. 3rd deadline to do so and it'd be a couple of years before that would've taken effect anyway. So, your favorite national politicians' salaries are protected by the U.S. Constitution, but ironically, their staffers are not.
The State of California dealt with a similar issue when lawmakers were still getting paid even though the state budget rarely got passed at the June deadline. So, In 2010, voters fixed that by passing Proposition 25 which states if the budget didn't get approved by the deadline, state lawmakers did NOT get paid. No salary. No travel or cost of living expenses either. Guess what? Since 2010, the state budget has passed on time, every time. How about that?
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