Over at The BLT, Tony Mauro has an interesting post on the proposed Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) for federal judges that would let judicial salaries adjust for inflation. The COLA increase was originally inserted into the auto bailout bill, but it was pulled because it became controversial:

  [E]ven before the Senate killed the bailout, the judges' COLA got into unexpected trouble. Some press reports on the House action portrayed it as a judicial "pay raise" that had been tucked into the House bill — rather than an adjustment that barely keeps them even with inflation. The news reports, apparently, scared off the Senate.
  "Wrong time. Wrong place," Sen. Claire McCaskill, (D-Mo.) exclaimed on the Senate floor Dec. 11. "We have families all over this nation that are scared today, that aren't buying Christmas presents. Federal judges get lifetime appointments and they never take a dime's cut in pay. They die with the same salary they have today." After that, it was little surprise that senators supporting the auto bailout began the process of pulling the judicial provision out of the bill. They did not want to jeopardize any much-needed votes. But then the whole thing collapsed anyway.

  Perhaps Chief Justice Roberts should edit his year-end report on the federal judiciary to make the case that the subprime market decline has caused a liquidity crisis in the federal judiciary. The federal judiciary needs a bailout, because is too big to fail. The report should admit that federal judges have made mistakes before, but say that the only way to get the judiciary back on its feet is to look forward. Plus, I'll bet the federal courts would be okay with a bailout in the one or two billion range. That's a bargain these days.