As Republicans prepare to take over the House, Speaker-in-waiting John Boehner is being pressed to cut the pay of members of Congress as a way to show Republicans are serious about reining in spending.
Congressional pay cuts aren't foreign to Minnesota, as former senator and potentially future governor Mark Dayton gave up his Senate salary to fund seniors' prescription drug bus trips to Canada.
Would a pay cut for Congress be a symbolic gesture? Sure.
But reining in spending and cutting the deficit? Well…
There are 535 members of Congress. If every member gave up their entire yearly base pay of $174,000 (and there's zero chance of that), it would add up to about $93 million in savings, amounting to a 0.007 percent reduction of the $1.3 trillion deficit. That's 7 cents from every $1,000 of the deficit.
What's more realistic is something like a 5 percent pay cut, which is $8,700 per member, totaling $4.7 million. That's a 0.00036 percent reduction, or three-tenths of a penny for every $1,000 of the deficit.
