Grasping Ricky

Last year our Legislature - surely one of the worst in the country - gave themselves whopping pay raises in the dead of one night. They tried to do it quietly so that no one would notice.

People noticed.

The Lege was forced to rescind the raises and a few legislators lost their jobs in the spring primaries.

I say all of this to provide background for Li'l Ricky's latest antics. Taking questions yesterday he attacked his opponent Bob Casey, who is currently State Treasurer, for actually signing the paychecks:

Political fallout continues from the Legislature's infamous 2005 pay raises, as U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum criticized Democrat Bob Casey yesterday for signing four months worth of checks containing the pay boosts for legislators.

[...]

The 16 percent to 34 percent pay raises were finally halted when the General Assembly, under pressure from the public and the media, voted in mid-November to repeal the action it had taken just after midnight on July 7, 2005.

"He sent out the checks with the raise for four months and then he claimed the raise was unconstitutional," Mr. Santorum told a Pennsylvania Press Club luncheon here yesterday. "Where was he when it counted? Why didn't he say the pay raise was unconstitutional and refuse to sign the checks?"

Why, indeed? Well, because the pay raises were the freaking law:

Casey campaign spokesman Larry Smar said the state treasurer "was constitutionally bound to sign legislators' paychecks. He was doing his job, and now Sen. Santorum is criticizing Bob for doing his job. He would have been thrown out of office if he had refused to do his constitutional duty."

So that's that. But what about Ricky voting to give himself pay raises on three occasions?

Mr. Santorum also responded to a written question from the audience about whether he, as a senator, had "voted for a pay raise three times."

What happened, he said, is that three times during his 16 years in Congress he had voted for modest cost-of-living adjustments in congressional pay, about 2 percent each time. He said the congressional COLA was less than a cost-of-living boost given to Social Security recipients in each of those years.

Mr. Santorum said the COLAs for Congress that he supported totaled only 6 percent for the three years, far less than the onetime 16 percent to 34 percent pay raises that state legislators voted themselves in July 2005.

Oh, I see. Those pay raises were "modest cost-of-living adjustments." That makes it O.K.



Nice try, Ricky.


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