Friday, December 19, 2008

In Train-Wreck Economy, Congress Gets a Raise.

In an article you definitely won't see in Kansas City's liberal daily rag, Congress will get a raise next year to the tune of $4700.

According to an article published in The Hill, members of Congress will get an extra $4700 tacked on to their salaries next year. All this in the face of their hypocratical grandstanding and demanding that Auto execs ride bicycles to work and oil execs should surrender profits, our ever so smart elected officials in Washington DC just got a hefty pay bump.

Ask your neighbor who just got laid off from Chrysler of GM what THEY could do with an extra $4700. Or maybe the lady next door who watches the neighborhood kids for $8.00 an hour how they feel about it.

This lil pooch knows that given all the perks Congress gets already, they need a raise like I need to be chased by a pit bull. Perkjs you ask?
Well lets start with free barbershop, free meals, travel per-diem, lodging per-diem, free health care (far superior to anything us lowly citizens would get) and more.

For the record, Average pay for a Congressman: $169,000. Leadership positions get spiffed a little more. Her Majesty Pelosi hauls in a little over $215,000. Senate leadership types make a little under$190,000. According tot he article in The Hill, in 1789, Congressional Representatives made $6.00 a day. That equates to roughly $75 a today by modern standards.

So much for the old premise of "citizen legislator", huh.
Change?
All together now.....Yes we can!!!
Hold on to your checkbooks!

Union Station to CEO Udris: Sayonara!

USKC Board members announced Thursday that CEO Andi Udris was essentially persona non grata and that former American Royal head wrangler George M.  Gaustello II was taking over the reins in 2009. 
Udris, as you may recall, came under fire from this lil news-pooch back in 2005-06 for some of the sweeping changes he undertook in the infancy of his reign as CEO. 

After spending a rain-soaked May afternoon with Andi and his PR gal Sara up at Shoal Creek, we came away with a whole new understanding of how hubs and spokes applied to Union Station as well as how to parse the word "at". 

Like him or not - he deserves a paw-bump for relocating the  local Fire History Museum to the Depot in 2007 and playing a pivotal role in the ongoing restoration and re-development of the Corinthian Hall facility here in good ol Historic Northeast.  

Given the pull quotes from the PR piece sent out this morning though, it sure looks to this nose for news pup that the whole thing was a "mutual decision" and that's all they're sayin about that. 

Gaustello: "Its an honor to be entrusted with the stewardship of these beloved regional treasures...". 

Udris: "I have enjoyed immensely my time working at Union Station..."

Time will tell however -  former Mayoral aide Joe Miller and former daily rag, chatter-box gossip monger Hearne Christopher (both with an emphasis on "former") are looking for work and this may have all the makings for a kiss & tell-all book. Stranger things have happend...one look at the fiasco that is the Mayor's office proves this pup's point! 

Be sure to check out next week's edition though for a more objective look at the transition taking place down at the big depot on Pershing Road.