Our politicians sure do spend a lot of their/our money getting into and serving in office.  The wages and benefits are pretty good too. It is interesting that they seem to be among the extremely small group of people who can give themselves raises.

What I propose is that politicians be paid no more than 75% of the top wage in their district, preferably the median wage. Their benefit package also being the middle of the road for their district. That way, they can get a raise, when the economy of their voters improves. The economy is their friend or their enemy. 

Obviously they still need to be transported to and from Washington for their jobs. The tax payer does still need to cover that cost, but only coach class or military aircraft unless they use the frequent flyer miles for one of those trips and not for vacations. We pay for those flyer miles as a business expense. Those miles go back to government business trips. 

The bottom line: we are tired of politicians living high off the hog. congressmen make 165k to 212k per year, while the average American earns 48k.

Even though most congressmen will not want to hear us tell them that they make too much, but they must be told.

Call them, fax them, write them email them.... bombard them with the sentiment that we will not take the "Let them eat cake" attitude.