House Speaker Mike Johnson wants you to feel sorry for members of Congress. He says they need to be able to trade stocks so they can “take care of their family.”
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Let’s talk about what taking care of their family actually looks like on the taxpayer dime.
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Base salary for a rank and file member of Congress: $174,000 a year. Leadership earns more. The Speaker himself pulls $223,500. That is roughly three times the median household income in this country, for a job many of them treat as part time.
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That is just the salary. Members get a gold plated benefits package most working Americans will never see in their lifetime.
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Pension: Members vest after just five years of service. Under the Rule of 80, they can collect a full pension at age 62 with only five years in. Long serving members can walk away with six figure annual payments for life, capped at 80 percent of their final salary.
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Thrift Savings Plan: Taxpayers automatically contribute 1 percent of every member’s base pay, then match up to another 4 percent. On a $174,000 salary, that is $8,700 a year in taxpayer funded retirement contributions, every year, on top of the pension.
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Healthcare: Members enroll through the DC Health Link with generous federal subsidies. They also get access to the Office of the Attending Physician at the Capitol for a flat annual fee, plus free care at military hospitals like Walter Reed.
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Office allowance: Each House member gets a Members’ Representational Allowance averaging $1.8 to $2 million a year to run their office. That covers up to 22 staffers, travel back and forth from the district, and office expenses.
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And the staff. The people Speaker Johnson says cannot afford to “take care of their family” employ chiefs of staff who routinely make over $170,000 a year. Legislative directors, communications directors, and senior policy advisors regularly clear six figures. A Capitol Hill chief of staff out earns most doctors, most engineers, and almost every small business owner in Brevard County.
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Outside earned income is capped at roughly $33,855 a year, but that cap does not touch investment income. Dividends, capital gains, and stock trading profits are wide open. Convenient.
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So when Mike Johnson stands at a podium and says we need to have sympathy for members of Congress and let them keep trading stocks to feed their families, understand exactly what he is asking for.
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He is asking the American people, the nurses, the veterans, the firefighters, the teachers, the small business owners watching their grocery bills climb, to feel sorry for a class of people earning $174,000 minimum, with lifetime pensions, taxpayer matched retirement accounts, premium healthcare, multimillion dollar office budgets, and staffers pulling six figures.
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While they trade stocks on information the rest of us will never see.
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Americans are not tired of paying their representatives. We are tired of watching corruption dressed up as virtue.
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Ban the trading. Every single one of them. No exceptions. No sympathy.