I am not feeling much sympathy for them.
The Senate is often called the “millionaires’ club,” but some of its members would feel the pain if a blown budget deadline costs them their paychecks.
Provisions in the “No Budget, No Pay” debt ceiling bill that is headed to the Senate floor would impound senators’ salaries if the upper chamber doesn’t approve a budget by April 15.
For most of the upper chamber, the loss of the $174,000 annual salary would be no hardship. Many senators are millionaires many times over, having earned substantial fortunes outside of politics.
But for a small group of senators whose net worth is measured in thousands instead of millions, the passage of “No Budget, No Pay” would put their very livelihoods at risk.
“We’re not all millionaires,” Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) told The Hill. “When I splurge, it’s on a Ravens t-shirt.”
“As much as I love my job and my constituents, I have bills to pay,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska).
“As a non-millionaire senator, I am certainly in a different spot that someone who is independently wealthy,” Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) said.
The provisions in the bill specify that if the Senate does not pass a budget resolution, pay will be withheld until Jan. 3, 2015, when the 113th Congress ends.
via Senators not in ‘millionaires’ club’ would be hurt by lost paychecks – The Hill.