“How can this be called a ‘continuing resolution,'” Elon Musk asked concerning Congress’s next-to-last stopgap government funding bill, “if it includes a 40% pay increase for Congress?”

The real number was 3.8%, but Musk’s little white lie played a part in tanking that bill and getting another one, with no raise, passed and signed.

Non-leadership members of the US Senate and House of Representatives receive “only” $174,000 per year in salary. They’d like to get more — at least automatic “cost of living” adjustments — but they’ve been thwarted in that desire since 2009.

Not counting expense allowances/reimbursements, they “only” get paid about twice the US per capita income. The poor dears.

Which brings me to my perennial proposal, perhaps for notice by Musk’s upcoming “Department of Government Efficiency,” concerning congressional pay.

DOGE won’t really be a government department, just an “advisory” commission that can make “recommendations” to cut costs, improve operations, etc. But I expect it will at least achieve “bully pulpit” status to move public opinion, MAYBE resulting in a few actions.

So let’s try this recommendation on for bully pulpit size:

Two thirds of both houses of Congress should propose, and three quarters of the state legislatures should ratify, a constitutional amendment permanently setting PRE-federal-income-tax congressional salary at the previous year’s POST-federal-income-tax personal per capita income.

If my calculations are correct (you know how it is with taxes — even the IRS never seems really sure how much they want from you), that would bring next year’s congressional salary in at a little under $66,000.

While that would save taxpayers some money right off the bat, it wouldn’t really amount to much — 535 members of Congress times savings of $74,000 per year each totals less than $40 million versus annual federal spending of around $6 trillion.

But direct savings is only a small part of the “efficiency” equation here.

Tying congressional pre-tax salaries to your post-tax income would encourage Congress to legislate in ways that increase your income and reduce your taxes.

Such legislation would itself entail increased “efficiency” — cutting government spending, reducing government regulation, avoiding costly wars, etc.

Would the politicians look hard for ways to game the new system? Of course. They’d probably give military personnel and other government employees big raises, while creating new taxes on you — probably disguised as “user fees” — that wouldn’t count in the formula.

But you’d know what they were doing, and you’d know why.

Run with that, Elon! Happy New Year.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

More than 40 years after its release, an exchange in the opening scene of Warren Beatty’s Academy Award-winning film Reds floats to the front of my mind whenever I think about war.

Master of Ceremonies: “I, for one, see no reason why we here at the Liberal Club shouldn’t listen to what Jack Reed has to say. What would you say this war is about, Jack Reed?”

Reed, standing, looking a bit confused and annoyed: “Profits.”

The one-word answer, while correct — Reed, as a staunch Communist,  held to some fairly silly ideas on economics — was also incomplete.

World War One was indeed about profits. It was a clash of declining empires: Empires purpose-built to  rake off a share of profits, taken by imperially protected business enterprises from colonized places and peoples, for the benefit of the imperial political classes.

World War Two largely killed off the old empires, but created new ones for its victors, the US and the Soviet Union.

Eighty years later, the declining remnants of THOSE two empires (and even smaller European remnants of the imperial age) rage against the dying of their light, scrapping over territory and the attached profits in the Middle East, Africa, the Americas, and, of course, Ukraine.

Nearly three years into the second phase of that war (the first phase involved the 2014 secession from Ukraine of, and subsequent “frozen conflict” over, Donetsk, Luhansk, and Crimea), I’ve still got friends who want to believe the war is over “democracy” versus “authoritarianism,” “protecting ethnic Russians from literal Nazis,” etc.

In fact, that war is, and always has been, about whether poor, politically corrupt — but resource-rich, and geographically located in ways that maximize its strategic importance —  Ukraine will go forward as the US/EU/NATO imperial satrapy it became in 2014, or revert to its former status as a Russian imperial satrapy.

In other words, it’s about profits for Rome on the Potomac versus profits for Constantinople on the Moskva.

An odd bifurcation: Whenever I point this fact out on X, I’m accused of being “pro-Russia.” Whenever I point this fact out on a site where I frequently comment, I’m accused of being “pro-US/EU/NATO.”

But I’m going to stick to my guns — pardon the militaristic turn of phrase — on this one.

There are no “good guys” at the policy level here. The only moral principle at stake is whether it’s acceptable for imperial gangs to murder each other’s colonial serfs to benefit their own political classes.

I say no, but hey, that’s just me. Your mileage may vary. If it does, and if you think you must take a “side” in this war other than the side of peace, at least be honest with yourself about what you’re supporting.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

In 1989,  US forces invaded, conquered, and occupied Panama, replacing its pet dictator, Manuel Noriega with a new regime.  Then-president George H.W. Bush’s justifications for the invasion included protecting US citizens in Panama and prosecuting the ill-conceived and ill-fated US war on drugs. The more likely reason is that Noriega, after many years of obedient service to his US masters, had increasingly become his own man (not necessarily in good ways, but that wasn’t the issue — he was plenty bad before, too).

In 2025, president-elect Donald Trump proposes that the US regime regain control of the Panama Canal, ceded to Panama in 1999 pursuant to a 1977 treaty proposed by then-president Jimmy Carter and ratified by the US Senate. Implementing Trump’s proposal would likely require another invasion, another conquest, another occupation, and imposition of another regime change.

Trump’s justifications for his proposal include his expressed opinion that the US acted “foolishly” when it ceded the canal to Panama, that the transit fees charged to move ships across it are “ridiculous,” and that the Chinese regime’s influence in Panama is strategically dangerous to the canal in particular and US interests in general.

Unmentioned, but worth wondering about: According to the Panamanian courts, the Trump Organization evaded, and owes, millions of dollars in taxes to the Panamanian regime. The case is currently in the US federal court system. Presumably any Trump-installed new regime would take a more forgiving attitude.

Personally, I don’t care if someone avoids taxes — of any kind, in any amount, in any way, or to any regime.

But neither do the other supposed justifications hold water, if for no other reason than that attempting to re-take the canal, even if successful, would likely end up with it shut down for a significant period of time, costing US consumers far more than the “ridiculous” transit fees Trump complains of and increasing rather than decreasing Chinese influence in Central America as the region’s regimes start looking for help with their own prospective defense from US predation.

And frankly, this one is personal to me.

I won’t name names because I think it would be disrespectful in the context of making a political argument, but if you care to look, you can find the name of the only Marine who was killed in the 1989 invasion.

I knew that Marine. I went to boot camp with him. Because the first letter of his name was close to the first letter of my name, he slept one bunk down from me, and we sometimes stood fire watch and other details together. I won’t pretend we were best friends, but he was one of the recruits I got to know better than most during a formative life experience.

I’ve not always been anti-war, and wouldn’t have considered myself anti-war in 1989. But never, at any time, did I consider the US objectives in Panama worth his loss.

If Trump follows through with this ambition, people — American and Panamanian alike — will die. And, again, the results won’t be worth that cost.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY