Thursday, December 29, 2011

Government of the Rich, by the Rich and for the Rich

But we are going to re-elected most members of Congress. Why? How much more evidence do we need that this government does not represent us. They are laughing at us because they can do whatever they want without repercussions. It's up to you and me. Either we through the bums out or we get what we deserve--more of the same greed, corruption and failure:

According to a study reported Tuesday, nearly half the members of the United States Congress are millionaires. Of the 535 legislators (100 members of the Senate and 435 members of the House of Representatives), at least 250 are millionaires and the median net worth is $913,000.

Sixty-seven senators are millionaires and the median wealth of the body’s 100 members is $2.63 million.

While the Senate has long been known as a millionaires’ club, the transformation of the House is a relatively recent phenomenon. The median net worth of members of the House of Representatives, excluding home equity, has more than doubled over the last 25 years, from $280,000 in 1984 to $725,000 in 2009 in inflation-adjusted dollars. During that same period, the median net worth of an American family fell from $20,600 to $20,500.

[...]The median wealth of members of Congress rose 15 percent from 2004 to 2010, despite the financial collapse that devastated working people and for a time drove down the median wealth even of the financial aristocracy. In part, this was the result of congressional turnover—the incoming “Tea Party” Republicans were on average far better off than the Democrats or “establishment” Republicans they replaced, with a median net worth of $864,000 for the 106 members of the supposedly “populist” freshmen class of 2010.
Full article

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