March 4, 1974
Page 5125
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, few issues plunge Members of Congress into more hazardous political waters than the subject of their own salaries. This year is no exception, and the issue is further complicated by the related question of salaries in the executive and judicial branches.
Feelings on both sides of the pay issue are all the more intense because of the enormous increases in the cost of living in recent years.
Let me state my position at the outset: I believe there is a special obligation for public servants in all three branches of Government to set an example of restraint for all Americans during this period of continued inflation and economic hardship.
For this reason, I will oppose both the President's proposed pay increase of 7.5 percent per year for the next 3 years and all proposed compromises which would permit any form of pay increase at this time. Now is the time to demonstrate to the people of our country that members of all three branches of the Federal Government are willing to make significant personal sacrifices in the fight against inflation.
This is not to say that a case cannot be made for a pay increase on the economic merits. Since the last pay raise in 1969 for all affected categories, the consumer price index has risen 29.3 percent.
Yet salaries have remained frozen – not only for Members of Congress, but also for 842 Federal judges and court officials, 600 political appointees, and 10,000 top career Federal executives, Veterans' Administration medical personnel, and Foreign Service officers. Meantime, pay for other Federal personnel has risen 42.3 percent, and executive-level pay in industry and in State and local governments has risen between 25 to 30 percent. Even if the President's proposals were enacted, it would be 1978 before top pay catches up with cost-of-living increases over the past 4 years. Meanwhile, the inflation will undoubtedly continue.
Because of the existing pay ceilings, the problem of pay compression in the top salaried positions has become severe, and morale problems are reported to be intensifying. Civil Service Commissioner Robert E. Hampton has warned against morale loss and possible flight of our most experienced and talented career employees into more remunerative professions if salaries remain frozen at 1969 levels. Chief Justice Burger has issued a similar warning with respect to Federal judges. The General Accounting Office has criticized the President's recommendations as inadequate and has urged reform of the Salary Act of 1967 to insure more equitable treatment of high salaried Federal personnel in the future.
Notwithstanding the foregoing, I believe that there are stronger countervailing reasons for opposing these pay increases at this time. Above all, I believe that public officials have a special responsibility to show leadership in exercising restraint in matters concerning their own remuneration.
We are living through a critical time in the economic affairs of our country. Average Americans – workers, small businessmen, farmers, older people – are being especially hard hit by rampant inflation. Lower income people are barely holding on as their fixed costs – for food, energy, housing, clothing – continue to soar.
As we struggle together against the debilitating trauma of extreme inflation, it is untimely, to say the least, for those in Government to allow themselves a major pay increase at this time, however deserved that increase may be.
The Government officials affected by the President's proposals are at the upper end of the Federal pay scales. While they have been hit significantly as a result of inflation since the last pay raise in 1969, they nonetheless have remained in a much better position in relative terms than the average American. They can do without a major increase at this time.
I would like to add one additional thought: People with power and influence in our society seem to have been able to find relief during this economic squeeze by passing their own cost increases to those at the bottom end of the economic ladder. The average American is becoming increasingly angry and frustrated at this tendency, and those sentiments are being clearly and forcefully expressed in my own mail from constituents as well as in the media.
If we seriously want to reestablish the credibility of the Congress in the minds of most Americans, we cannot permit the people to believe that our first concern is to use our position of power and influence to get relief for ourselves while they are unable at the same time to get relief for themselves.
I agree that there is never a good time for Members of Congress to increase their pay, and I appreciate the fact that inflation has wiped away most of the last increase. But I cannot conceive of a worse time to deal with this problem than the present.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that letters from two of my constituents in Maine, one enclosing an article from Newsweek, be printed in the RECORD at this time. These letters are typical expressions of the deep economic frustrations being felt by Americans today. It is because of these frustrations that I believe we must oppose any proposal for a pay increase at this time for Members of Congress, Federal judges, and other high-salaried Government employees.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
YORK, MAINE,
February 18,1974.
Hon. EDMUND MUSKIE,
Washington, D.C.
DEAR SENATOR MUSKIE: My husband and I have just come back from visiting with Ruby P. Littlefield of Ogunquit, Maine, who told me that he used to know you quite well when he was a Senator in the Maine Legislature.
We showed him the enclosed clipping from Feb. 18 "Newsweek". He agreed with us that if you haven't read it, you should, because this young woman says so well what the average person feels.
What can we do to make our voices heard except to appeal to you, our representative?
I hope you will be able to find the time to read this article through and not just where it has been underlined.
Sincerely yours,
BARBARA DE GRUCHY.
[From Newsweek, Feb. 18, 1974]
(By Donna Cord)
DIARY OF A MAD HOUSEWIFE
You, my fellow Americans, will probably never read this. Not because my thoughts are not interesting, or important, or valid, or a darn sight better than a lot of the gibberish I have read in the My Turn column. But because I am nobody ... that is, I am not what the enlightened editors of Newsweek would call a distinguished guest writer. But then, how many of those are there around anyway? No, I am just a poor, ordinary schnook – married, mother, citizen. The Bank Americard bill around our house is in four figures and the Sears bill is not far behind. A traveling vacation is in the unforeseeable future, as is a new car (our '68 Chevelle is creaky, but it runs), a new coat, roast beef and air conditioning. How many My Turn columnists can match those qualifications?
The one thing that I have an abundance of at this point in time is anger. Anger and disgust. Not with my country. The United States is blessed (in theory at least) with all the institutions to make it work for the people. I am angry with you, and you, and me. All of us. We have become a nation of sheep and we are being screwed at every turn.
We, the people, are letting go unchallenged atrocities that should warm the hearts of totalitarian leaders everywhere. The governor of California pays no taxes. The President pays laughably little (and by the way – my memoirs and personal papers are just sitting here, waiting for someone to appraise them); your rich landlord probably paid less than you. Capital gains, write-offs, loopholes. Everyone acknowledges that only the middle-average-poor get the tax shaft. So why do we let it happen? Where is a full-fledged taxpayers' revolt? I am tired of being hopelessly debt-ridden while the rich and the super-rich and the politicians go skiing (did you notice our new Vice President happily giving interviews on the snowy slopes of Colorado?).
My husband belongs to no union; he gets no (ha ha) "cost of living" raises. So each year that he earns the same, our financial condition goes straight downhill. We need gas as much as any one, but if we had dared to block an interstate highway with our rusty car, we would have been arrested in two minutes flat. Why is it that big, profitable airlines have the ear of the government and plain people do not? Why, if indeed there is a shortage of gasoline, were the huge oil companies allowed to raise their prices to compensate for the reduced supply? All that that accomplished was to keep their profits (amounts so enormous they boggle the mind) at the same level. Well, the oil companies are part of the reason for the energy crisis, so why should their profits stay the same (or worse, increase)? What is the tragedy if big business would bear part of the burden of our current troubles?
But oh, no, folks. You and I are the ones who pay – 60 cents a gallon and no end in sight. Can you believe that the signs of this energy crunch were not apparent to our government three months ago, or six months ago, or two years ago? What the hell have our leaders been doing? Wallowing in Watergate? But, to and behold, all of a sudden the government announces that there is an energy crisis and a shortage of practically everything, and we meekly accept. Why aren't we outraged? We are taken for fools and suckers – and we must be.
MACARONI AGAIN
We are fools because we have uncomplainingly let the big-money interests take over our country. If you're not a conglomerate, you're nobody. I laugh and cry and rage all at the same time when some overeducated economist rattles on about supply and demand and trade deficits and baloney; then he slinks away, back to his well-furnished home and well-padded paycheck, while we nod our heads and eat macaroni again.
We, the people, used to have high moral standards – sometimes downright Victorian and repressive, but high nevertheless. So why are we allowing our beloved country to limp along with a President who is at best morally questionable, surrounding himself with yes men and crooks and perjuries and enriching himself at our expense? My house needs remodeling – will you send me tax money to pay for it?
Congress, a body of elected officials completely surrounded by a vacuum, is supposed to reflect the will of the people. And it is reflecting all right – reflecting our lack of will to change what is wrong. What are we afraid of? Have we met the enemy and it is us? Where is our public pressure – our collective will – to either get off the President's back (if his is still truly the leadership we want) or get him out of office?
We have gone along for years accepting the rich getting richer, toys that can maim, built-in obsolescence, unsafe cars, medical costs that threaten bankruptcy, air that chokes us and special- interest lobbies in Washington. Don't we care? Are we indeed such sheep that we must wait for a Ralph Nader to come along and get our cars made safer for us? We are the ones who are getting smashed up in our Tinkertoy two-doors at the rate of 50,000 a year while Pentagon personnel spend their time in chauffeured (and, I might add, sturdy) limousines. Where is the "citizens' lobby" to look out for your interests?
There is insanity all about us. Our government sells wheat to Russia, which in turn supports and encourages the Arab countries, which in turn shut off our oil. We pay farmers for not growing food, and millions go hungry. The dairy industry is a government pet, and I try powdered milk (ugh!) because real milk sells for $1.50 a gallon. If we elect an almost "ordinary" person – that is, not a millionaire – to high office (like Agnew), he winds up with his hand out for money; and if we elect millionaires, how can they know or care about the ordinary needs of ordinary people?
WHERE ARE OUR VOICES?
I have no answers – only a strong faith in the power of the people. I only know that you can't be walked on if you stand up. I know I care about my country and the quality of my life. And so do my neighbors. And the people all across America. Where are our voices? There is a scene from "The Magnificent Seven" in which the outlaw says of the poor villagers whose town he has just plundered, "If God didn't want them shorn, He would not have made them sheep." Have we become a nation of sheep?
MACKLANBURG-DUNCAN CO.,
South Portland, Me.
GOOD MORNING SENATOR MUSKIE: I never thought I would ever get angry enough to write a letter to my Senator. I say my Senator, for I have supported you in any political encounter you have entered since I was able to vote in 1961, and always admired you as a Governor and then U.S. Senator.
I just finished watching "sixty minutes" on CBS, Channel 13 here in Portland, and listened to the Shah of Iran call the oil companies in my country liars.
I have come to the point in time when I don't really trust my government, I'll change that, I trust my government, but I do not admire or trust the few people who are running it.
With the controls (Federal) we have on the people who are paying the bills, which are not the wealthy nor the poor, but the people who are just able to make ends meet. Maybe the "middle American" as we are called should "go on strike" it seems to be a way to get attention but we are too busy working to pay higher food costs (because my Senator and Representatives are sending our grain to Foreign Countries, or a poor fruit picker won't pick or harvest a crop because he can't make enough money to support his family, or a truck owner won't haul the food to my store because he can't afford to pay higher fuel costs.)
And we the "Middle American" are too busy working to pay higher home heating fuel costs (which have doubled in the past twelve months) we are busy working to pay higher gasoline costs (which have increased by over 60%). Home heating fuel and gasoline are in short supply I am told by my Government, whose only knowledge comes from oil companies. These oil companies among other large companies have contributed enormous amounts of money to political campaigns and politicians for political favors.
Can't you control these companies?
Mr. Muskie. I have supported you in any way I could both by vote and money. Now you must support me.
I am damned tired of getting up every morning, listening to the news and finding that we are in more trouble than we were the day before.
Mr. Muskie, my wages are not keeping up with the expenses you are allowing to be charged.
Mr. Muskie, I'm running out of gasoline. Mr. Muskie, My house is cold because my thermostat is set at 65º (since last November.)
Mr. Muskie, I need your help!
Very Sincerely Yours,
JAMES SEVERANCE.
P.S. Let's get America back on the right track, so we can all be proud again.