News-Record.com

Before getting to the serious business I have with Congressman Howard Coble, you may want to give him, or at least his picture, the business on eBay.

That's right, you can buy your very own signed postcard of the Congressman for $9.99. Coble is heading into his 25th year in Congress and the picture appears to date from the beginning of that run.

Now on with our show.

Visiting with Coble in his Capitol Hill office tonight, I asked him what he wanted to tackle this session.

"Well my first order of business, old friend, is going to be maybe this week on this proposed pay increase," Coble said.

Rank-and-file members of Congress make $169,300 a year and are due for a $4,700 raise this year. That raise happens automatically unless Congress heads it off.

The automated raises were put in place more than a decade ago. In large part, they were supposed to avoid partisan wrangling over pay raise decisions. (No one would have to risk his neck or seat by sponsoring or debating in favor of a pay raise bill.)

Coble said that this year, with the economy tanking and people losing jobs, Congress should act to block its pay raise.

"When you have bills like this, it invites demagoguery," Coble said. "I'm not going to be a demagogue about it, but I think this is ill timed. You have thousands - strike that. You have tens of thousands of people who have lost their jobs ... and then they're picking up the paper and seeing we're getting a $4,700 a year raise. I think it serves no good purpose."

Coble is not the first to this idea.

Rep. Harry Mitchell, D-Arizona, will be the lead sponsor of a bill to do what Coble is talking about. (More here.)

Coble did not mention the Mitchell bill -- which cannot officially be filed until Tuesday at noon -- but said he was looking for a measure to sign on to.