Oh, my heart bleeds: The outgoing Congress is not going to get its full annual pay raise until such time as they agree to raise the minimum wage, incoming speaker Nancy Pelosi says. Good for her! Somehow, I have a hard time feeling sorry for current members, who make $165,000-plus without raises:

In one sign of the approaching Democratic rise to power, future House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and incoming Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., succeeded in attaching to the funding bill language stopping until Feb. 16 an automatic pay raise members of Congress were to receive on Jan. 1.



They said no pay raise should be enacted until Congress approves an increase in the federal minimum wage, which has been stuck at $5.15 an hour for the past 10 years. If the pay raise goes into effect Feb. 16, members would lose some $320 of their anticipated $2,800 annual increase. That raise would be $3,300 if Congress acts to boost the cost-of-living allowances for all federal employees in 2007. Currently, rank-and-file members get $165,200.