http://www.rollcall.com/50richest/the-50-richest-members-of-congress-112th.html

Members of Congress do not have to report their homes or retirement accounts. This list may be skewed.

For comparison, I would like to see a list of the fifty "poorest" members of Congress.

I'm not sure what the revelancy to who is rich and who is poor has to do with how good a job they do in congress.

Who does Congress represent? The people that are like them? The people that cast votes for them? The people that voted in the election? Even if they voted for the other candidate? The people that are registered in the distict? The people that live in the district? People in the same income bracket? People they hobnob with when they aren't in DC or Sacramento?

Congress remindes me of Marie Antoinette's comment about let them eat cake when people in the French Revolution were complaining they did not have food.

How do you measure the goodness of work done by Congress? Depends who you are.

If the person in Congress is so rich that their retirement is independent of the legislation they pass, how do they get an appreciation of the situation that most people are in. Namely, depending on entitlements. One party says entitelments are evil and should be done away with. The other party gives the impression that everyone should be on the dole. So the rich people depend on staff to determine a fair amount to pay out and a fair amount to collect? And congress says that seems about right and the AARP won't treat me too badly.

The way congress is treating entitlements, entittlements are becoming evil very quickly. Entitlements are being held hostage for political reasons. Highway Trust Fund to pay for High Speed Rail?

So what? The voters don't even know where their tax money goes, let alone care enough to do something.

How much publicity is there on the income cap on Social Security taxes? How many know that the cap was lowered as part of the incentive package? Any comments on Social Security?

The truth lies somewhere in between.

I posted the link to the list of rich congressmen hoping to start a discussion about understanding the people we vote for. We don't vote for poor people unless they have the ability to attract vast amounts of money for campaigning.

There is a comment that if Bill Gates or Warren Buffet sees a hundred dollar bill on the sidewalk, they would be losing money if they stopped to pick it up. I get the feel that some Congressmen are so rich that they would be losing if they took time to understand the issues from the point of view of the people that sent them to congress. No, not the monied interests that bankrolled their election. The people that put a mark by their name on the last ballot.

The more likely reaction to a rich congressman list is that people with a party preference will iidentify rich people of the opposite party as the source of all evil. I would have hoped people would ask some questions about motivation. Why would rich people want to serve in public office?

Then there is fair political practices and voting reform. In California, those are tools to axe your opponents, not tools to uncover the people who are profiting at the expense of the people they represent.