Tom DeLay Understands Cost-of-Living Adjustments

While this story covers the $3100 increase in Congressional pay, let’s go to the end of the article:

“It’s not a pay raise,” said House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas. “It’s an adjustment so that they’re not losing their purchasing power.”

The Congressman is exactly right as the percentage increase in nominal pay is less than 2%. And yet we hear so many GOP leaders trying to claim that nominal increases that are less than the increase in the cost of living represent benefit increases rather than cuts.