Will NJ Legislators Give Themselves a Raise During Lame Duck Session?
With less than two weeks left in New Jersey’s legislative session, legislators are discussing significant salary increases for lawmakers, judges, staffers, cabinet members and future governors, with many speculating that approval could come as early as next week.
According to NorthJersey.com’s Charles Stile:
The possibility of lawmakers approving raises might spark some cynical snickers, especially in a time when most voters say they are in sour moods about the economy. Still, Democrats, who control both the Assembly and the state Senate, are considering boosting the pay of part-time legislators from $49,000 to $85,000, said one legislative source with knowledge of deliberations.
This amounts to a 73% raise.
While taxpayers are likely to balk, it’s been 24 years since legislators last gave themselves a raise and many point out that lawmakers in neighboring states earn significantly more. New York lawmakers, for example, make $142,000.
If salary increases are to be approved during lame duck, a bill would have to be voted through the Assembly Committee on January 4 in order to go to a final vote on January 8, the last day of the current session.
I honestly don’t know where I land on this. The subject is new to me. But here’s a stipulation I’d love to see added to a bill like this one: make salary increases contingent on refusing to accept money from the pharmaceutical industry and the medical cartel.
Can that be a thing?
In early 2023 Open Secrets reported,
Pharmaceutical and health product companies poured over a record $372 million into lobbying Congress and federal agencies last year (2022), outspending every other industry and making up over half of all health sector lobbying efforts…
The Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), a trade association representing companies in the pharmaceutical industry, was the top individual lobbying spender in the industry in 2022, spending $29.2 million for its lobbyists to cozy up to legislators.
According to this 2021 STAT report,
While the drug industry gave money to a broad range of candidates, it focused in particular on those on key committees that oversee health care legislation.
It tracks.
And it may help explain some of what we’ve been witnessing in New Jersey.
You can read more about that here:
Meet the Doctor Behind NJ Vaccine Mandates
It’s time to take a look at how the sausage is made. I’m writing this, not to vilify another human being, who may very well be driven by a strong belief, but to expose a culture in which “experts” and legislators can be placed and elevated to drive pharmaceutical agendas.
You can go here to see how much some of your legislators accepted from pharmaceutical companies in 2020. This doesn’t seem to include special interest groups that are funded by some of these same companies.
Can NJ legislators with integrity use this as an opportunity to make it stop?
If we’re going to give lawmakers a raise, I want to know they’ll be working for US and not the drug industry.
Just makes you sick, while the rest of us are struggling, left jabbed up with terrible economy, homelessness and migration, healthcare down the tank, and political theatrics with endless wars, these ****** are allowed to give themselves a raise.