Automatic raise for lawmakers? Why?

State lawmakers are getting a 2.8 percent cost-of-living pay increase. It's automatic.

How many people in the nonunion private sector get an "automatic" pay raise? None. Right now we have an $11 billion shortfall. How much of that is due to wages, pensions, benefits, etc. of the public employees?

They're talking about raising the income tax by 50 percent. We pay 10, 11, 12 percent sales tax on purchases, the highest in the country, and they still expect to get their raise. What on earth is wrong with these people? How do they differ from the greedy CEO's that got us into the mess the country is in?

I am grateful, of course, that you bothered to print the article, but why not on the front page, with all the names of the politicians who voted to keep their "automatic" cost of living raise when everyone around them are heading to the poor house? How much is enough, at the expense of the long-suffering taxpayers?

Rosemary Colbert

Schaumburg