I wish my budget was that tight! I'd have all my bills paid off and a very decent savings account by the end of the year with that! I'm getting by just fine on the "average" income above (where I ended up when I got a new job).

"I have to maintain residences on both coasts"

No. You don't.

But nice try. As a lovely consolation prize you get the "Asshat Award".

Job doesn't pay you enough? Quit and get a better one.

Stupid scrunt. It should be a point of law that if the new fiscal year begins without a budget being passed, no member of Congress or their staffs get paid. You want to get paid? do your motherfucking job and pass the fucking budget.

I mean, it's not like passing the budget is one of the few Constitutionally-mandated functions of Congress or anything...

Boo-Freakin'-Hoo.

These people are so far removed for reality it is scary.

She thinks she has it bad? Stupid bitch should try talking to the military families that are looking at not getting paid because the DemoRats are deliberately staging this shut down to score political points. I hope her electricity gets shut off and her milk curdles to the consistency of her soul.

It's called living within your means. Our elected officials should look into it. What was her job BEFORE she was elected? And if you live paycheck to paycheck, let's talk about your decision to have a kid.....

Yeah, at least she has the option of refusing a paycheck. Unlike a lot of us.

BTW, I've been going through job openings for aerospace companies. Everybody has tons of openings in the Washington D.C. area. Not many anywhere else. What is that giant sucking sound I hear?

I'm with Brian, right down to the language. FY2011 started LAST OCTOBER FIRST! and yet? we still have never made a budget for thise year.

"Is that... legal?"
'We'll make it legal.'

She does have some problems with numbers.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0211/50162.html

If they had done their jobs when they had a veto proof majority, we wouldn't be having this discussion. We'd be using the budget they passed last year.

Has anyone heard of a Congress person, or even a former congress person starving on the streets?

Not even one.

They pay games with the military pay, because they know that most of us can go a very long time without the rest of it being funded. My passport isn't up until next year, but I'll forego foreign travel to stop subsidizing ethanol and sugar.

I don't feel for her in teh least. However, there was s study done that showed the majority of people thought they would be really happy if they just had 10% more money, and that was across the income spectrum. Whatever people make, they tend to spend up to.

Since this is Congress' fault, they should be the FIRST ones to suffer the consequences. Since they're not, they could care less.

What bullshit.

Hah! She's on the ethics committee too...

Thanks for that politico link Kate.

The Democrats wouldn't pass a budget because even though they didn't NEED a single Republican to do so, they wanted Republicans to sign on to the budget they crafted (after locking the Republicans out of the room) so they could blame Republicans when it failed.

The Republicans wouldn't play their stupid game, so they just didn't bother to pass a budget, and Obama didn't have the balls to force them to do it like Reagan, Clinton, or Bush would have.

Fuck the Democratic party with a rusty chainsaw. AND NO LUBRICANTS!

Amy,

Linda and Loretta Sanchez have been a pain in my community's ass for a long time. To win votes one of the sisters tried to pit the vietnamese-american community against the mexican american community a while back. These cunts have been a prominent annoying fixture in OC with their ridiculous antics. Can we seriously get rid of them PLEASE?

She fails to include in her income all the little perks of office. Bribes are an excellent source of cash.

@BarSinister: Yep, and I guarantee you she never has to buy her own dinner or pay for her own entertainment. Her staff doesn't, either.

Sanchez says she maintains residences on both coasts, but she rents her residence out here in Lakewood, so she is not living here, plus she lives with her husband in a home he owns. She recently sold her condo in DC for a handsome profit. Like many other Americans I wish I was doing as badly as Sanchez.

I have a friend deploying next week. He's a husband and father of two and they've made a lot of sacrifices so she could stay home and homeschool the kids. If he doesn't get paid he shouldn't have to deploy.

If I could reach through my monitor and slap someone this woman would pretty near the top of the list.

What type of lifestyle do you think a career politician should be able to lead? What would you think is fair?

A 2-bedroom rental in a bad neighborhood, bicycle, never eating out anywhere fancier than McDonalds?
A rowhouse in a working-class neighborhood?
A 4-bedroom house and a volvo?
A mansion and private school?

Which lifestyle is fair to provide to our congresspeople?

Bear in mind they have to pay for 2 residences... one of which is in a very expensive city... remember the guy who got all sorts of shit for sleeping in his office?

There are a lot of Americans content to live off of welfare, and these people skew the medians and means.

"Bear in mind they have to pay for 2 residences... one of which is in a very expensive city"

And why is it a very expensive city? Did you know that of the 3000-or-so counties in the United States, the top 5 most wealthy are in the D.C. surburbs? Why do you suppose that is? I'll repeat what I said yesterday in another thread: I'm looking for a job. I go to the career pages of these companies' Web sites and look at their job listings. They have dozens of listings in the D.C. area. Almost none anywhere else. While the rest of the country is stuck in recession, D.C. is a boom town.

Can you hear the giant sucking sound? Can you feel it tugging on your wallet?

Her residence in D.C. might be expensive, but that does NOT mean she needs another expensive residence in her home state. She can rent like the rest of us.

I call shenanigans.

"What type of lifestyle do you think a career politician should be able to lead? What would you think is fair?"

Nobody's saying they have to be poor, that's why they get paid a fat salary. But what is disgusting is claiming that you struggle and live 'month to month' on that salary - if you do, it's only your own fault.

Sanchez represents one of the poorest districts in Orange county, CA... so to align with her constituents she plays the I'm just as broke as you game. I f Santa Ana wasn't predominantly Hispanic, we wouldn't be talking about this poor little girl.

I couldn't believe her statement either. Living paycheck to paycheck when the mean income of her constituents is $45,000? I wrote about her arrogance in "Am I Surprised?" at http://bit.ly/aqxTel