The Philadelphia Inquirer—the newspaper whose owners are bankrupt and whose staff has endured wide layoffs and whose remaining staff members have foregone raises—has been paying Rick Santorum $1,750 for each column the former senator writes for the paper, according to documents the Inquirer filed to…the U.S. Bankruptcy Court.

Indeed. Soak in the irony. As Editor & Publisher points out, the per-column fee—Santorum writes two a month for the Inquirer—earns the ousted legislator “over $45,000 for the year.”