As we get poorer, our government gets richer?

Somehow I found myself reading through an article titled, "The Richest Member of the Congress," today and was struck by something very odd.

The richest member of congress, Rep. Michael McCaul (Texas) has a net worth of $294 million - to be specific, the CNBC.com article reads, "annual survey of The 50 Richest Members of Congress in 2005, he reported a minimum net worth of about $12 million. His financial disclosure report now depicts a fortune worth almost 25 times that amount."

So, let me get this straight, making the list in 2005, required 12 million bucks. A lot of money either way. But, doesn't it seem that comparitively, the 294 million he makes now is quite a big leap in 5 years.

I mean the bar has definitely been raised to make the list since 2005. Lots of red flags (as per usual, with these beyond wealthy politicians) - for me at least. I mean in 2005, the average household median income was 46k. Looking at today, that number isn't much higher at roughly 49k, no 25 times larger or 280 million more.

I mean there are 245 millionaires in Congress, that's a lot of competition I suppose. It's no wonder you need to multiply by 25 in order to make the list. In fact according to the CBS News article, "Based on 2009 data, there are currently 66 in the Senate and 179 in the House (among current voting members). So while just 1 percent of Americans are millionaires, 66 percent of senators are millionaires, as are 41 percent of House members."

So let me get this straight, Americans earn a meger 3k more now than they did 5 years ago, not even 1 times the amount - and congress/senate who need to earn 100s of millions more to be a part of this "richest congress member" list sit around and determine how to bail us out financially?

Each year they get richer, while we barely improve...I wonder how they fix their own problems? My guess: throw money at them. So instead of sitting around and playing Barbies with the poor folks' money (and yes, that's us), throw your own money at it because clearly what you are doing with ours isn't working.