Warner’s pay raise just as bad as AIG bonuses

We note an item in the March 15 edition of the Richmond Times-Dispatch that Sen. Mark Warner voted to accept an annual automatic congressional pay raise while many of his colleagues felt it was inappropriate in view of the country’s economic chaos.

I consider this outrageous act to be one of only many despicable votes he has taken on the floor of the Senate since he first assumed office after serving as Virginia’s governor. He is presumably one of the richest senators. Is he now so destitute that he needs the $4,700 pay raise to make ends meet? How many of us would like to have that much put on our energy bills, mortgages and health care costs?

On March 17, Warner wrote a scathing letter to Edward Liddy, chairman and CEO of the now-despised American International Group, following Senate hearings on the multibillion-dollar bailout of AIG, stating, “In these perilous times, it is unconscionable for the American taxpayer to find out that the very employees responsible for running the company into the ground now have received performance-based awards.”

If Warner feels that the pay raise he accepted is a “performance-based” award, all Virginians should access http://thomas.loc.gov/home/rollcallvotes.html and see just how poorly the good senator has performed. The votes of Warner and his pal, Sen. Jim Webb, show that they are anything but independent thinkers. They toe the line of that clique of Sens. Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer, Christopher Dodd and Ted Kennedy while kowtowing to Queen Nancy Pelosi and her friends in the House, Reps. Barney Frank, Charlie Rangel and the like. God help us.

R.D. Anderson

Waynesboro