The $7 billion machine

A member of Congress makes $174,500 a year. The Speaker makes $223,500. Majority and minority leaders make $193,400. CRS publishes the table https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/RL30064 That is not the bill you are paying. That number is the decoy. The bill is $7.258 billion — Public Law 119-37, FY2026 — for a part-time floor sitting on a full-time payroll. https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R48612

Where the $7.258 billion goes

• House of Representatives: $2.083 billion. The Members' Representational Allowance alone ran about $1.85 million to $2.09 million per House office in 2025 — staff, travel, district rent. Eighteen full-time aides plus part-time is allowed. https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R40962
• Senate: $1.467 billion. Office budgets scale with state population. The chamber that sits fewer days than a school year still draws a year-round payroll.
• U.S. Capitol Police: $852 million, plus $30 million in mutual-aid reimbursements in the same law.
• Library of Congress, including CRS: $852 million (CRS itself about $136 million). The research shop that writes the tables they hope you never read.
• Architect of the Capitol: $812 million. The buildings. The grounds. The campus that never goes home.
• Government Accountability Office: $812 million. The auditor of everyone except, in practice, the people who fund it.
• Government Publishing Office: $132 million. Congressional Budget Office: $75 million. Joint items: $25 million. A $522,000 line for widows and heirs of deceased members.
• On top of the salary: FEHB health coverage paid in part by you; a FERS pension that can start after five years and outlive the member; House and Senate gym and parking; an outside earned-income cap they wrote themselves ($33,285 in 2025).

How it is used against the people who pay it

• They write the second law you are never shown — riders, notwithstanding clauses, omnibus stacks — then tell you the floor was too busy to read it.
• Call time is the real session. Donors get the hours. The statute gets the leftover. You already paid $174,500 so they would not have to work the phones. They work the phones anyway.
• They set their own pay, their own pension, their own ethics office, then investigate themselves. The STOCK Act of 2012 was a press conference. The trades continued.
• District offices can sit quiet while the allowance still moves. The machine does not shrink when the member is in a hotel ballroom.
• When the people notice, the caption becomes the weapon. The $7.258 billion buys the building in which the caption is written.

Is it treason

No. Print the statute before anyone puts that word on a sign. Article III, Section 3: treason against the United States consists only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. 18 U.S.C. § 2381 is the same crime in the code https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2381 Conviction requires two witnesses to the same overt act, or a confession in open court. The Framers narrowed it on purpose so a faction could not hang a rival for a policy fight.

Self-dealing is not levying war. A part-time floor on a $7.258 billion payroll is not adhering to an enemy. A STOCK Act that does not bite is not aid and comfort. Calling it treason when the elements are not there is the same cheat they use when they say insurrection and file no § 2383 charge. This journal will not fake a capital crime to win an argument.

The oath, and the Constitution

They did swear. Article VI binds every Senator and Representative by oath or affirmation to support this Constitution https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/article-6/ The statute they recite is 5 U.S.C. § 3331: support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic; bear true faith and allegiance; and well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/5/3331 There is no separate felony titled 'oath violation.' The oath is the job description they put their hand on. 'Faithfully discharge the duties' is the line they are on.

What the Constitution actually requires of the money: Article I, Section 9 — no money shall be drawn from the Treasury but in consequence of appropriations made by law https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/article-1/ A continuing resolution and an omnibus are still appropriations made by law. Ugly is not the same as void. The 1974 Budget Act's twelve bills by October 1 is a statute, not a clause. They can break that statute for thirty years and still have 'passed a law.' That is the letter. The spirit of Article I is a legislature that debates spending in the open. They have not done that work. That is a failure of the duty they swore to discharge.

The Framers already saw the perk problem. The 27th Amendment: no law varying the compensation of Senators and Representatives shall take effect until after an election of Representatives has intervened https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-27/ They may still raise their own pay. They may not pocket it before the people get a vote. Self-dealing was the fear. Delay was the fence. They have learned to live inside the fence and still write their own pension, their own ethics office, and the twin law you never see.

The constitutional remedies are the ones written down. Article I, Section 5: each House may punish its members and expel with two-thirds. The ballot. An amendment they do not get to grade. Not a street. Not a word reserved for war. What it is: employees who swore to faithfully discharge the duties, took $7.258 billion, and did not. That is how a government stops serving the people and starts serving the syndicate it has become.