In the days of vaudeville, before America became a sensitive nation, one of the tried and true jokes was when one comedian asked his stage buddy “Und, ist Ihre Frau okay?” – “Verglichen mit was?”

(Translation: Q: How’s Your Wife? A: Compared To What?”) It was a knee-slapper in any language. Then. Before we knew better.

Of course in 2015 the “joke” is offensive and certainly not funny. I feel a little woozy, and guilty, just typing it. But, that said …

When faced with questionable numbers, comparisons, logic, etc., the compared-to-what question can be useful.

Take Rep. Tom Rice (R-S.C.). Please!

He’s introduced a bill that would impose an 8.7 percent pay cut on anybody in government, from POTUS to members of Congress to you, who makes $100,000 or more. The pay cut will remain until the economy returned to pre-recession levels. It is not designed, necessarily, to punish overpaid feds. But there is that.

The pay-cut plan has a lot of people confused. There are a lot of numbers and assumptions there. Where to begin? Where to end? Compared to what?

After writing about the pay-cut plan, we got a lot of responses. Such as:

• “Your column really hit home. Congressional representatives who say that those highly educated professionals who are federal employees make too much money. Yet this congressman who makes this insane proposal to cut those who make over $100,000 a year is from the same party as Illinois Congressman Schock who just resigned for ethics violations. Nobody’s raising cane over this. This guy was supposedly taking TAXPAYERS MONEY and donated campaign funds and spending it on a lavish lifestyle, and expensive trips abroad. This is the kind of thing that the public should be told about. All the federal unions should be jumping on this. Congress says we are making too much money. Slashes agencies budgets, yet this people’s representative spends their money even though he makes $174,000 a year. Look who’s calling the kettle black. This is the kind of thing that happens all the time in Congress. He conveniently resigns as to not create any more issues and quietly this gets swept under the rug! Union leaders, you must fight fire with fire if your going to get any public support. This kind of thing should be made front page news by the federal unions. Agency chiefs with slashed budgets should be howling at Congress. Especially when called in front of a congressional hearing over misuse of TAXPAYERS MONEY. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. Stop playing kissie face and tell it like it is. Maybe then with public backing Congress will leave you alone.” Tony Krolik
• “How is it that Congress seems to enjoy comparing apples to oranges to … avocados?

  “It is too bad the people who know how to make objective judgments are not asked to do so for these congressmen (and women?) who enjoy bashing us.

  “I have a Ph.D. and for 20 years made the industry bucks. Not so many bucks here at my Agriculture Department job, but also fewer worries. There are good and bad to both choices, and now that I am approaching retirement, there is less incentive to head back to industry. Too bad the Gray Googler opportunity collapsed; I would probably enjoy that.

  “But one never knows — just yesterday Bayer Crop Science requested the use of some of my photos for an ad slick they are producing. … And I was happy to help.

  “Maybe that is part of the equation — some payments are not in the form of the long green.” Jim

          Read more: Mike Causey

NEARLY USELESS FACTOID:

By Michael O’Connell

The total annual per capita consumption of pure alcohol for Americans is 9.2 liters.

Source: World Health Organization

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