We Don't Decide If We Get a Raise

Has an employer come to you and asked, "Do you deserve a raise?" and "How much should you get?"
It would be absurd for them to do so even though we would love for that to happen. Instead, our bosses decide how much of a raise we deserve and if we deserve a raise at all. If makes sense that way otherwise we would give ourselves as big of a raise as we wanted and businesses would have to charge outrages prices. In the end, the economy would collapse. So explain to me why lawmakers and government officials get to decide when they should make more money and how much they should make. They decide they are not making enough money so they pass a bill and attach a rider to increase what they are paid. And in the money has to come from somewhere so in the end we pay more in taxes. Tell me why this works for government and not for the rest of us.
I am not saying that people who run the government should not be paid a decent amount of money. Running a state or a country is no easy task and they deserve to be paid fairly. But how much they should be paid should be decided by the people they work for, the people who voted them into office. We should have to vote on weather or not their pay should increase based on if they deserve it. After all, the money comes from us. We pay their wages so we should decide if the people running the state or country deserve to be paid more. We are their bosses and we decide if they get hired or not. Why should it be their decision to increase their pay?