Rod Blum: “I agree with you. We will always storm the hill, my good friend, and plant that flag, regardless of how many times we…”

“I agree with you. We will always storm the hill, my good friend, and plant that flag, regardless of how many times we need to do it. But I would just like to mention some of the bills I have been involved with: Eliminating first-class airline travel for congressional Members paid for by taxpayers. Most of the people in my district have never flown in first class. There is no reason I should be flying first class on taxpayer dollars. Eliminating the $1,200-a-month luxury car leases that we can lease back in our districts. That is more than most house payments in northeast Iowa. It would eliminate that. We need to eliminate the congressional pension program. We need to eliminate the ability to become a lobbyist after you have served in this body. We need to tie our pay to the pay of the average American. The average American has not had a pay raise in over 20 years. The average American's pay has gone backwards. This body's pay should go backwards just like the average American's. The words used in polls is that we are out of touch. I wonder if this body is not out of touch, if we are not tone deaf. We need to be tied to the average American. I recently introduced a bill that, if we didn't balance the budget, then we would get a pay cut; if it is not balanced next year, we get a deeper pay cut; and if we keep not balancing it, we are going to end up making no money.…”