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The House of Representatives voted Tuesday to raise their member's salaries to 168,500, a $3,300 pay

increase. If it passes in the Senate, the increase will go into effect in January of next year and will mark the seventh straight year in which taxpayers have been very generous employers.

Director of Government Affairs Brandon Brandon Arnold, offers some thoughts.

What did Congress do to deserve a pay raise?

I think in the opinion of probably most Americans very little.

In fact, Congress's approval ratings right now are in the mid-20s which is pretty

abysmal. I imagine if you're a lobbyist in DC maybe you've liked some of what the members of

Congress have done in terms of earmarks and in terms of some of the tax breaks that they've passed for special

interests. But broadly speaking, there's a very unpopular Iraq war going on right now, as everyone knows.

There's a lot of pork barrel spending, spending in general is at record levels, and that to

even mention the ethics scandals that are going on.

Seems like every other day we hear about another member of Congress being indicted or investigated for some unethical activity.

It strikes me as odd that lawmakers said their own salaries.

Is there no performance valuation of any kind?

The way that business is currently done, the answer to your question is no. There's no performance assessment of any sort.

Congress is basically policing their own salaries. That's partially based on their

constitutional role. Constitution says they're in charge of paying out their own salaries.

Though in the past they've done things, I think,

a little bit more democratically.

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