Published March 1987 — Download PDF of the original newspaper column
Byrd's-Eye View By U.S. Senator Robert C. Byrd Returning the Congressional Pay Raise Congressional salaries have been a problem since the birth of our country. In 1789, the wage paid to each member of the U.S. Senate or House of Representatives was $6 per day. The Constitution placed on Congress the ultimate authority for setting its own compensation. That may help to explain why, during the 198 years of its existence, Congress has only received twenty-two pay raises, one of which it repealed. Expecting someone to set his or her own salary is to impose an uncomfortable duty, especially for political officeholders. In 1967, Congress sought partially to ease some of that burden by establishing a quadrennial salary commission to recommend salary scales for Congress, and also for the vice-president, federal judges, members of the president's Cabinet, and many other highly placed federal officials. The commission makes its recommendations to the President, who then proposes salary figures for Members of Congress and those other officials. Unless the President's proposals are officially rejected by both the Senate and House, the proposed salaries go into effect. The quadrennial salary commission, which bases its recommendations on comparable salaries in the business and private sector, in 1986 proposed that each Cabinet officer's salary be nearly doubled, from $88,800 to $160,000. The commission also recommended that the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court be paid $175,000 (up from the current $111, 700), and the deputy librarian of Congress and the assistant architect of the U.S. Capitol each be paid $120,000. The commission proposed that Senators and Congressmen be paid $135,000. In December of last year, instead of endorsing the commission's recommendations, President Reagan proposed lower, 16-percent per annum salary raises for the affected positions. The President's recommendations raised the salaries of Senators and Congressmen to $89,500. On January 29th of this year, the Senate rejected the recommended raises by a vote of 88-6. The House of Representatives, however, delayed voting on the President's proposed raises past the legal deadline. Consequently, the pay raises recommended by the president went into effect. I voted against the pay raise. I shall return my salary increase, minus the income tax that I shall owe on it to the Treasury, for the remainder of this Congress. That action does not solve the 200-year-old dilemma of setting Congressional salaries, of course. Perhaps Congress could eliminate the quandary of having to vote on its own remuneration by providing that such salary increases not take effect until a future Congress. March 18, 1987