Loebsack, challengers agree, mostly, on pay raises

By James Q. Lynch 

The Gazette

UPDATED

Blocking a pay raise for members of Congress is becoming a point of bipartisan agreement on the campaign trail in Iowa's 2

^nd

District, but also a point of attack for Republicans seeking a U.S. House seat.

Incumbent Rep. Dave Loebsack voted against a congressional pay raise April 27 along with Iowa's four other House members.

“Just like Iowa families who are cutting back, we should also cut back and do our part to help rein in spending and bring down the federal deficit,” he said.

That puts him on the same page as potential GOP challengers Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Steve Rathje who have said they will forego pay raises – whether approved by Congress or not. A third GOP candidate, Rob Gettemy of Marion, also took issue with Loebsack's “stunt.”

Chris Reed of Marion is also seeking the GOP nomination in the June 8 primary.

Miller-Meeks, an Ottumwa ophthalmologist, will refuse a pay raise “before asking any single, solitary Iowans to do more with less.”

“If you can't give a soldier a raise or a senior citizen a cost of living adjustment, it's improper for your representative to ask for more,” Miller-Meeks said.

Loebsack's office pointed out military personnel have received pay increases of 3.5, 3.9 and 3.4 percent since he took office. Loebsack is a member of the Armed Services Committee and sits on the Military Personnel Subcommittee.

Rathje, a Cedar Rapids businessman, promised not to take a raise or a cost-of-living adjustment (COLA), federal health care or pension “on your dime.”

Loebsack, according to his staff, has voted to block a congressional pay raise every time it has come for a vote since he was elected in 2006. The Mount Vernon Democrat, who is up for re-election, said “blocking the 2011 pay raise is a good start, but I want to go one step further -- let's take a pay cut.”

He is a co-sponsor of the Taking Responsibility for Congressional Pay Act, which would cut members' $174,000-a-year salaries by 5 percent starting January 1, 2011. It would be the first time members' salaries would be reduced since April 1, 1933, during the Great Depression.

That's “symbolic that you understand what people going through,” Miller-Meeks said, “but to say you are doing this to reduce the deficit, that's absolutely election-year pandering.”

Gettemy agreed that any time Congress wants to save taxpayer money it's a good thing, but he pointed out a 5 percent pay cut would amount to less than $4.7 million at a time when the federal budget deficit is approaching $1.5 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

“Given that Loebsack has voted with Speaker (Nancy) Pelosi over 97 percent of the time, including massive stimulus and health care reform bills, which have tripled the federal deficit in the past 18 months, there is no question that a savings of $4 million is nothing more than election year pandering,” Gettemy said.

It's worse than pandering, according to Gettemy. “It's the type of cynical stunt that voters have come to expect from Congressman Loebsack.

When senators voted last week to block their COLAs, it was expected to save taxpayers about $1 million.

That's too little, too late, Miller-Meeks said. Congress should have refused pay raises beginning in 2008 when COLAs for seniors on Social Security were frozen and the financial markets started crashing.

“It would have boosted morale if people saw Congress freezing pay rather than take an automatic pay raise,” she said.