Hightower Lowdown

Question: What’s the opposite of progress? Answer: Congress.

When it comes to serving the public interest — as this month’s Lowdown demonstrates — this bunch just can’t seem to keep from going backwards.

But we’re pleased to report that at the very end of the 2001 congressional session, our lawmakers did stand up for a segment of our population that claims to be especially needy and deserving of taxpayer help: themselves!

In the last moments before Congress adjourned for the year, the members snuck through a $4,900 pay raise for themselves — their third hike since 1998, lifting them to $150,000 a year. Oh, they say, it’s just a little cost-of-living adjustment.

Hello? Did you get a COLA last year? Did your paycheck go up three times in the last four years?

In fact, most Americans are in a downturn. From janitors at the WTC to dot-com employees in Silicon Valley, from steel workers to Enron workers, millions of regular Americans were knocked down in 2001 and were unable to simply — abracadabra! — raise their own pay. Worse, our Congress critters did it on the sly, using procedural maneuvers to avoid having to go on record.

This is not about the value of a lawmaker, but about the value of the common good — whether we’re all in this together. Note that in the Great Depression, Congress cut its pay . . . twice. Today’s Congress is not into cutting — it’s into grabbing.