Want Congress to Look More Like the People It Serves? Provide Member Housing, Pay Staff More

By Paul Kane, The Washington Post

25 November 18

ometimes a tumultuous election creates the elements in which both sides can come together to make some common-sense decisions that might seem unpopular.

Two of those possibilities should be considered next year in a bipartisan fashion: affordable housing for lawmakers and a significant pay raise for the legions of mid-level staff working countless hours on Capitol Hill.

Without any course correction, only the wealthy will be able to afford to run for Congress and only the already well-off will be able to staff the House and Senate.

The first issue received a jolt of attention with the election of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), the 29-year-old from the Bronx who has lamented not being able to rent an apartment in the District at least until January when she begins collecting the $174,000 annual salary given to members of Congress. That is a very fine salary, but most members must maintain two residences — and the D.C. housing market surge has turned a modest one-bedroom apartment near the congressional offices into a $2,000 monthly expense.

That creates a tight family budget, and any lawmaker with children approaching the college years can begin to see the incentive of ditching government work to become a lobbyist.

One potential remedy came from Rory Cooper, who left the Capitol four years ago after his boss, Eric Cantor (R-Va.), resigned as House majority leader. Cooper defended Ocasio-Cortez’s financial situation and suggested that Congress needs more lawmakers like her, Republicans and Democrats, to better understand the struggles of working Americans.

“We should all want to encourage more middle-class people to run for office, not less. And we should make Congress more accessible to them by eliminating the housing quandary,” Cooper wrote in an op-ed, prompted by a series of tweets last week suggesting Congress build dormlike housing for lawmakers.

This would cost many millions of dollars in upfront cash, but for an institution that doles out more than $1 trillion in federal spending each year, it would be a pittance.

It’s part of the cost of having a Congress that more resembles the diverse country it serves.

Lawmakers who opt to live in this housing could be charged a modest sum of $500 a month. Maybe limit the residents to those lawmakers in their first five years of service, and do away with the practice of sleeping in their offices.

Dozens of lawmakers already do this, essentially using their congressional office as a taxpayer-funded housing allowance.

Far more important, however, is the need to boost pay for congressional staff.

By tradition, no aide can receive more than a lawmaker, so the highest paid staff make a little less than the member’s $174,000.

But because of the fallout from the Great Recession, and the deep unpopularity of Congress, it’s been politically impossible to increase congressional pay.

That, in turn, has meant that staff pay has also been frozen for the last decade, creating a massive brain drain.

In 2008 the median salary on Capitol Hill was $47,662, according to LegiStorm, the nonpartisan for-profit company that researches congressional data.

A decade later, the median salary is $50,971.

If this pay had kept up with national inflation rates, the median salary would top $55,000. But that doesn’t even take into account the explosion in the expenses to live in the District.

Consider the demise of the group house.

Twenty years ago, the 100 block of C Street SE, half a block from the Cannon House Office Building, had at least four large townhouses filled with congressional staff and one with lawmakers. Rent, divided five or six ways, came in at under $500.

Those homes, now worth more than $1.5 million, no longer rent to 20-somethings. Instead, today’s younger staffer often crams into large apartment buildings that cost more than $2,500 for a two-bedroom.

LegiStorm’s analysis reveals a predictable trend: Fewer staff stay longer in those jobs, turning them over to less-experienced hands.

In 2001 and 2002, congressional staff in their 30s represented more than 34 percent of all aides on Capitol Hill, while 20-somethings made up 42 percent of staff.

By 2015 and 2016, people in their 30s represented just 27 percent of all congressional staff, while people in their 20s accounted for more than 55 percent of all aides.

The more salaries stayed flat, the more veteran staff have decided to leave working for Congress to, most likely, head to the private sector as they began to face decisions about marriage, children and home purchases.

The “lifer,” someone serving 20 or 30 years, is a dying breed.

People in their 40s used to represent more than 14 percent of all staff 18 years ago but have now have shrunk down to a little more than 9 percent.

The 20-somethings who remain should be applauded for their public service, but it’s time to start increasing their pay to make sure they will not feel driven away from the Capitol by the time they need to buy an engagement ring.

A vast majority of aides-turned-lobbyists consider their time in Congress the most riveting of their professional lives and, if there was an extra $10,000 or $20,000 in their annual pay, they might have stuck it out a few more years before joining the private sector.

Taking such politically sensitive steps — increasing funding on such an unpopular institution like Congress — requires leadership, and bipartisan leadership at that.

That’s why this month’s midterm elections offer such a chance for both sides to do the right thing, together, taking the political wind out of the hit.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is the likely House speaker and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) will continue running the Senate. They are among the most shrewd tacticians either party has had, and they both came up through the appropriations committees.

Those committees already took care of one injustice earlier this year, including nearly $14 million in funds designed to ensure every intern gets paid some salary.

“A student’s socioeconomic status should not be a barrier to getting real-world work experience,” Pay Our Interns says in its mission statement.

That nonprofit group, run by a former intern who had to wait tables on the side to live in D.C., shamed both parties into paying its interns to make sure that kids from all socioeconomic backgrounds could get their foot in the door through intern programs in Congress.

Now it’s time for Congress to do the same with the rest of its workforce.

What It's Like to Breathe Some of the Most Polluted Air in the World

By Furkan Latif Khan, NPR

25 November 18

he first thing I do every morning is open my balcony door and check the air outside. If I spot the blue sky, I'm overjoyed and draw in a deep breath. But many days, the air has a dusty, burnt taste. I make a mental note not to forget my air filter mask before I leave the house.

This is life in India's capital, New Delhi.

In the nine years that I have been living here, the air quality has rapidly deteriorated. When I first moved to the city, the winter fog that rolls around this time of the year was white. But over the years, it has turned grayish-brown from smoke and dust. On days I don't wear a face mask, I have a constant headache and my nose clogs up. When the pollution level is high, I try to take shallow breaths, absorbing only as much air as absolutely necessary.

Delhi is ranked as the world's 6th most polluted city in terms of air quality, according to the World Health Organization. (It has plenty of regional company — 14 of the 15 worst are in India.)

I wanted to know how pollution was affecting my health. So last week, I went to visit Dr. Sunil Kohli, the head physician of Hamdard Institute of Medical Sciences and Research, a public hospital in Delhi.

Kohli specializes in internal medicine. That's the whole body. But a whopping 25 percent of his patients, he says, come in for respiratory problems.

My nostrils have a burning sensation almost all the time, I told the doctor. He nodded. The air pollution makes it hard for him to breathe sometimes, too.

Delhi's air is a toxic concoction, according to a 2008 study by the Central Pollution Control Board, an Indian government body. It includes high levels of dangerous gases like carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, sulphur oxides, ozone gas, aerosols and particulate matter (PM) of varying sizes. The finer particles of pollutants — of 2.5 micrometers or smaller — are the most dangerous, the study reports, as they reach the deepest corners of our lungs and into our bloodstream, a 2018 WHO report points out.

This month, the concentration of these tiny pollutants was over 20 times the safe limit set by the World Health Organization.

The poor air quality in Delhi is largely due to transportation, industry and construction, according to a 2013 report by the Indian Journal of Community Medicine. In 2017, 10 million cars plied Delhi's roads, estimates the Delhi government. The tailpipe exhaust and fumes from hot tires on asphalt pose a high risk to commuters' health. On top of that, there's dust from giant construction projects, exhaust from factories around the city, and crop fires hundreds of miles to the north.

So how does breathing in pollution affect health?

A 2016 study published in the Journal of Research and Medical Sciences found that long- and short-term exposure to air pollution has a direct association to respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, eye irritation, skin diseases and cancer, among other ailments.

There's also concerns that the body's hormone system can be affected, according to a 2013 U.N. report — although there are no definitive findings on that yet.

People in Delhi are frustrated. There have been awareness campaigns and government committees to improve the air quality. There have even been restrictions on the use of fireworks on Diwali — one of the major Hindu festivals in India — which has been cited as a contributor to air pollution. Schools are closed on especially polluted days.

And after a public health emergency was declared due to high levels of pollution last November, city authorities implemented a scheme to reduce the number of cars on the road. Cars with even license plate numbers were allowed to drive on alternate days from cars with odd-numbered plates. The step was taken to temporarily cut down on vehicle emission and curb the pollution level.

But when I breathe in the air on my balcony, I still can't tell a difference.

To minimize the harmful effects of breathing, Delhi doctors suggest staying indoors whenever pollution levels spike. That means not being able to do some of the things that I enjoy — like dining outside or going on a picnic with friends.

Over the years, products like air purifiers, oxygen cans and filtered air masks have flooded the markets. Different types of masks are now available. Disposable ones cost as low as 15 cents, and reusable ones, which can last about six months, for $28. For the fashion-conscious, there are even "designer masks," featuring colorful prints.

I recently bought my third reusable mask. It's pretty sophisticated, or so I thought. It has head and neck straps, a nose bumper to seal the air and changeable air filters.

But when I showed my mask to Dr. Vineet Jain, a general physician at Jamia Hamdard Hospital, he wasn't completely convinced of its effectiveness. Polluted air can still make its way through the mask, he says.

Jain suggested nasal filters, which you stick over your nostrils, helping you breathe through the tiny filters. He says they are slightly better in ensuring leak-proof filtering of the air. They look like bandages.

I just ordered them on Amazon.

Every day, I wonder how many years of my life I am giving up, breathing in New Delhi.