Struggling to "Get By" on $174,000 a Year

Can you believe the sheer stupidity of claiming that it is "hard to get by" on a public employee salary that is three times what the median for Wisconsin...



This guy wants you to sympathize with him, but he is from the very political party that is rolling back income for public union employees in Wisconsin in order to give more tax cuts to corporations and fat cats who... how can I put this gently... are earning something north of $170,000/year.

Here's a bit from the blog Talking Points Memo:

The tape caused a stir for Duffy, a first-term conservative best known for his past as a reality TV show star on MTV's The Real World. Democrats flagged the comments about his taxpayer-funded salary (which is nearly three times the median income in Wisconsin) and criticisms began to flow Duffy's way.

In the clip, Duffy is asked whether he'd support cutting his own salary. Duffy says he would, but only as part of a plan where all public employees' salaries would be cut. He then said that the $174,000 in salary (not including benefits) he receives is a squeeze for his family of seven to live on:

I can guarantee you, or most of you, I guarantee that I have more debt than all of you. With 6 kids, I still pay off my student loans. I still pay my mortgage. I drive a used minivan. If you think I'm living high on the hog, I've got one paycheck. So I struggle to meet my bills right now. Would it be easier for me if I get more paychecks? Maybe, but at this point I'm not living high on the hog.
Duffy's office said any Democratic criticism of his response was "a misleading attack." For more on Duffy's finances, see this post.

The county GOP took down the video from its blog after the Washington Post posted a short clip of it yesterday morning.

This isn't quite as bad as the kid who killed his parents and then asked for mercy from the court because he was an orphan, but it is close.

Why do people vote in this bloodsuckers to be their "representatives" when they are so unrepresentative of the people they are supposed to "represent". This guy is so out to lunch he thinks he has an especially hard time because he has to get by on only $174,000 per year. I wonder how that sits with the Walmart employees of his district.

Update 2011apr02: Here is a bit more background from the Talking Points Memo blog:

Duffy is one of the poorest members of Congress. OpenSecrets.org, which tracks the money in Congress, ranks Duffy as near the bottom among House members when it comes to his personal net worth.

Here's a rundown of Duffy's finances, from the 2009 disclosure form he had to file with the government: his family of 7 (wife plus six kids) is carrying between $250,000 and $500,000 in mortgage debt; between $50,000-$100,000 in student loans; between $15,000-$50,000 in credit card debt; and between $100,000-$250,000 in debt related to the family vacation home, a cabin not too far from his primary residence in Wisconsin.

The Duffy family lives in a 5-bedroom house sitting on 5 acres in Ashland, Wisconsin. The home has a market value of $247,000. They also own a 2-bedroom cabin in Iron River. That house is valued at $229,000.

Duffy's household reported a total of $154,500 in income in 2009. That included $94,000 in salary from his job back then as county district attorney and $4,500 in income from his side gig as a competitive lumberjack. Duffy's wife, Rachel Campos-Duffy -- who like her husband starred in MTV's The Real World -- brought in $56,000 in salary.

View the entire 2009 financial disclosure form here.

The $154,000 in income in they reported in 2009 made Duffy's family objectively well-off when it comes to a family from Wisconsin. Median household income there in 2008 was $52,103, according to the Census.

But in Congress, that kind of coin makes Duffy one of the poorest. Check out this chart from OpenSecrets comparing Duffy's finances to the congressional average.

...

Earlier this month, the site did a big report on the freshman House class, which is among the wealthiest ever to be elected. Duffy was among the "several freshmen who, however, have little reportable wealth at all," OpenSecrets wrote.

Duffy's also tried to paint himself as one of the more austere members of the freshman class. He's one of around 20 members who sleep in their Hill offices rather than pay for a residence in Washington.

Go to the TPM blog to get the embedded links.