Roll Call has the right term for what U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings is demanding.

The newspaper calls the Florida Democrat “tone deaf.”

That’s likely going to be one of the more charitable descriptions the man with the checkered past is going to hear about his demand for a raise for members of Congress.

http://blogs.rollcall.com/hill-blotter/hastings-members-of-congress-need-a-pay-raise/

House members and senators earn $174,000 annually. Hastings complains that the cost of living in the District of Columbia is too high and that lawmakers cannot afford to live there on their meager six-figure salary.

Hastings has lost touch with what most of us out here, beyond the Beltway, are enduring. Granted, the economy is in full recovery mode and lives are better for many millions of Americans. But in the eyes of us working stiffs, 174 grand a year to make laws is a pretty fair wage.

I should point out that lawmakers take extended breaks from the rigors of studying and voting on issues. They jet off to exotic locations on junkets, er, “fact-finding trips” to learn about pressing issues of the day.

Allow me to say this out loud and clearly: I do not feel one tiny bit of sympathy for the salary we taxpayers shell out for our members of Congress.

Furthermore, that someone such as Alcee Hastings would make this demand/request is even more galling. I call it that because before he was elected to Congress, Hastings had the bad form of being impeached and then removed from his post as a federal judge in Florida on allegations of corruption.

Now this man says he wants more money?  “We aren’t being paid properly,” Hastings said after a congressional hearing.

Maybe Hastings and his colleagues would deserve a raise if Congress demonstrated an ability to govern.

Maybe …