Members Of Congress Are Getting Paid $2,000 For Each Bill They Pass

The leaders of Congress attend a ceremony on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2013, to remember the young victims of the 1963 firebombing in Birmingham, Ala., during the Civil Rights Movement. From left... The leaders of Congress attend a ceremony on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2013, to remember the young victims of the 1963 firebombing in Birmingham, Ala., during the Civil Rights Movement. From left are, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nev., and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of Calif. A statue of Rosa Parks is at center. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) MORE LESS
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Members of Congress are getting paid more than $2,000 for every bill they pass.

The chart below — assembled by the Washington Post, based on data from the Congressional Research Service and GovTrack — reveals the remarkable extent to which lawmakers today are being paid to accomplish next to nothing.

Members of Congress, excluding leadership and the president pro tempore, earn $174,000 per year. Lawmakers in the wildly unproductive 113th Congress are being paid $4,368 per bill passed over the two-year session — or $2,184 annually.

Money is hardly an issue for most lawmakers, anyway. A January 2014 study by the Center For Responsive Politics found that “[f]or the first time, most members of Congress are millionaires.”

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  1. Only two grand?

    Aw c’mon, their bribes must be AT LEAST triple that.

  2. Also, how many of the bills were substantive? If you weed out the renaming post office, and congratulating the Wyoming Kiwanis type of stuff, its probably a quarter of this count.

  3. Avatar for paulw paulw says:

    It could be worse – imagine if the per-bill rate were lower because more of the loony House stuff was getting through the senate.

  4. do we get to discount that against all the money they wasted on BS investigations of non sence scandals and all the time and money wasted voteing on bill’s that they knew dammed well were not goin anywhere in the senate…overturning the ACA…Obamacare

  5. Avatar for rick rick says:

    “113th Congress are being paid $4,368 per bill passed over the two-year session – or $2,184 annually.”

    Yeah, somebody needs to take Algebra again.

    If a person is paid $x per bill over a two-year period, how much money is he paid per bill over half that period? (See below for answer…)

    It’s still $x per bill. Half as much money, but half as many bills in half the time. The rate should stay the same, yes?

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