Congressman Robert K. Dornan (R-Cal.) has come up with the best idea yet for curbing inflation. He is introducing a bill to tie the salaries of Congressmen and high federal officials inversely to the rate of inflation.
Dornan’s plan is to reduce the salaries of Congressmen and high government officials by the same percentage that inflation shoots prices upwards. Thus, if inflation in 1979 is ten percent, each Congressman’s and federal official’s salary would be reduced by ten percent.
This is the healthiest idea in years because it puts sanctions on those responsible for inflation and provides a direct monetary incentive to mend their ways. The main cause of inflation is deficit spending proposed by the executive branch and then voted by Congress.
Dornan’s bill would apply to all members of Congress and to top appointed federal officials except the President, Vice President and federal judges, whose salaries are constitutionally protected against reduction. Dornan’s bill would not apply to civil service employees. In other words, most of the top decision-making officials of our government, the ones responsible for inflation, would be affected.
Under the present system, federal officials and Congressmen have a monetary incentive to continue inflation. An escalator clause raises government salaries when the consumer price index goes up. Federal tax receipts climb even faster than prices during inflation because we are all shoved into a higher tax bracket. Dornan’s bill would repeal the escalator clause.
Other parts of the bill are still to be worked out. One provision under consideration is to allow a Congressional pay raise in the fourth year if there is no significant inflation for three years.
Also, in order to have a realistic chance of passage by his colleagues, Dornan‘s bill will probably specify a floor below which Congressional salaries cannot fall, such as $42,500. The present salary of a Congressman is $57,500.
With such personal incentive provided by the Dornan bill, Congress could be expected to eliminate at least some of the tens of billions in direct and indirect foreign and domestic giveaways that are the principal cause of inflation. It is time that we hold accountable those in the administration and in Congress who make the decisions and who prepare and approve the budges that perpetuate those giveaways.
This bill is just the latest of Congressman Dornan’s constructive ideas that go to the heart of an issue and dramatize the problem in ways that make an impact. When President Carter proposed an instant voter registration plan to allow anyone to vote without registration simply by presenting an ID card, Dornan proved how easy it is for anyone to secure phony identification (and thus cast fraudulent votes). He showed up at the Capitol with several phony ID cards for himself and his fellow Congressmen.
When President Carter last year planned to allow the sale of our best super computer, the Cyber 76, to the Soviet Union, Dornan energetically collected the signatures of 315 Congressmen and brought them personally to the White House. Carter stopped the sale in the last inch of time.
Congressman Dornan, who was a fighter pilot with the first supersonic Air Force Wing, is a helicopter pilot and a commercial pilot and has piloted the B-1, our best Air Force bomber. He made a gallant fight to prevent the Administration’s cancellation of the B-1.
Dornan lost that fight and the Carter Administration cancelled it without getting any concession whatsoever from the Soviets. The Russians not only did not cancel any weapons whatsoever, but they continue building new weapons at a crash wartime rate. As time goes on and the Soviets continue their strategic buildup, more and more people are coming to the conclusion that Dornan was right and Carter was wrong.
