During the Senate’s consideration of the most recent Congressional spending orgy — the 1,132-page, $410 billion, nearly 9,000 earmark-infested Omnibus spending bill, Louisiana Republican Senator David Vitter forced the Senate to vote to keep their automatic annual pay raises:

He tried to amend the measure with a proposal that few lawmakers would dare to oppose in a recession: canceling the automatic increases in lawmaker salaries, now at $174,000. Using a parliamentary tactic, Vitter forced Reid to schedule a vote on his amendment for a vote.

Unfortunately, the Senate voted 52 to 47 to kill Vitter’s amendment and keep their automatic pay raises.

As I wrote back in 2003, the Congressional automatic stealth pay raise system is just wrong.