[Poundstone]

As a longtime Washington resident, I can attest that this place is booming!

[sten]

goes along with record tax revenues

[TurboZamboni]

For those who remember the old Soviet Union, it was a grim place — at least for average citizens. But not so for those in government. Contrary to the official ideals of equality and a classless society that the ruling communist regime espoused, the USSR created a privileged class of party members inside government — the nomenklatura.

This semipermanent bureaucracy earned higher incomes, got better health care, ate better food and had greater job security than average Russians, the much-despised proletarians. Today, our bloated federal government seems, in significant ways, to be creating this same dynamic.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2482637/posts

[saganite]

Yeah but congressmen are stuck only making $172,000 a year.

[reg45]

This explains a lot. No wonder that the politicians, who cannot see beyond the beltway, think that the economy is improving.

[LoneRangerMassachusetts]

Until regulators are punished with indexing their incomes to that of the regulated, it will only get worse. The regulators as the process works now respond only to political whim and not practical wisdom.

[GeorgeTex]

DC Metro area-seven of the ten richest counties in America. All gained by producing misery for the rest of the country.

[sphinx]

There’s way too much time-wasting whining on this thread. Who told you peasants you could knock off work????