I guess the idea of paying them well is that they can’t be bought with bribes. Then again, when has any wealthy person ever been satisfied.
If the job didn’t pay a salary, the only people who could do the job would be the rich who don’t need a salary, or those willing to accept bribes.
If you make the salary too low, it will discourage anybody who can make a better living doing something else. And, if the people doing it don’t think they’re being paid what they’re really worth, they’re more likely to take bribes or “donations” to boost their salary back up to what it should be.
Really, the salary should be high. It should be a job that people who are really qualified will want to do. It should be one where you have no need to take a bribe because you’re already doing so well, and you’d be afraid of throwing away such a well compensated job.
They also carry a hell of a lot more responsibility than the average American worker. Is be in favor of a party raise along with restricting other income streams like stock investments.
Honestly, there’s a load of satisfied wealthy people - you just don’t hear about them because, well, there’s literally nothing to report about them.
I wouldn’t say it’s so that they can’t be bought, so much as so they don’t have to be bought. It’s part of the reason they haven’t voted for a pay raise and so long. Their owners don’t want them to have other options.
Lawmakers don’t vote for their pay raises, they don’t need to. The increases were made automatic in 1989. Even with the annual increases, their pay is nothing compared to what they can make from insider information and contributions from anonymous PACs. They can be bought, government salary just can’t compete with dark money.
That isn’t quite accurate. Congress hasn’t gotten a pay raise since 2009. Because they vote against giving themselves one.
Ah, I’d read they didn’t have to vote to get a pay raise. Didn’t see that they had been actively voting against it. But who needs a raise when you know you’ll get waaay more money from corps and special interest groups? Heck, they’ll even write the bills they want passed for you, so you don’t even have to work hard.
Ah, that makes sense.
In the history books when they discuss the hundreds or thousands of small cuts that eventually killed America, Mike Johnson may very well be one of the most prominent captioned photos.
I thought after citizens united they represent corporations not us
pretty sure most of them are millionaires, because the billionaire donors are giving them money, in other forms.
Also politicians wouldn’t exactly be less corruptible if they were poorer.
$1000 deductible?? i wish
$300/month 😂😭😢😐
Stupid on so many levels
Let’s also start forcing them to work forty hours.
they spend most of thier time "begging’ for more money from donors, for thier campaigns.
That would further incentivize their corruption
I disagree. Everyone believes that people are greedy and their only goal in life is money hoarding. But if you ask them what their own goals are, getting filthy rich has very, very low priority.
If politicians are greedy, that’s because 1) to become a politician (in the USA), you already have to be rich, and 2) if politicians are paid lots of money, greedy people want to become politicians.
You don’t want to attract greedy assholes to represent you, but that’s exactly what you’re doing if you pay them too much. The people you do want to be politicians are those who aren’t interested in money.
Politicians aren’t paid lots of money, at least not by the government.
They have legitimate travel expenses and need a place to stay while in session and DC is not cheap. $60k would simply make the temptation to take money greater. You dont want your represetative broke and struggling. Their current pay being too high in not a problem because its not. Their ability to trade with insider knowledge and be corrupted by lobbyists and billionaires is.
Thry should get a massive salary but be strictly banned from all other forms of income.
Nobody working for government should get rich.
They weren’t ever supposed to represent you, they represent rich white men like they were intended. It’s literally designed to favor the rich because literally every single one of the signers of the bill of rights was a wealthy dude, to a man they were middle - upper class and in general criminals at that.
Salary will have unintended consequences.
Why would anyone choose that job unless they were already very wealthy?
In fact, it’s pretty much already that. While a representative makes a decent salary at $174k/year, that’s not really that much in the scheme of things. Most folks who could swing that job could swing a higher paying one, depending on the location.
So already you kind of either must want to do the job for the sake of doing the job, or (the more usual), the position has a lot of room for various ‘extracurricular’ income, whether it’s bribery or bribery adjacent in the now, promises of future cushy private sector jobs in exchange for favors now, or ability to cash in on the fame with book deals and speaking engagements in the closest to innocuous ulterior motives associated with the position.
People who want to enact change. You can find plenty of those they just don’t have any visibility because money.
I think everyone wants to “enact change”.
The problem is, the people with the requisite skills can earn much more than $60k doing something else.
How about this:
We pay politicians in “X times the minimum wage”; for the sake of this example I’ll say 30x the minimum wage (too much? Too little? I don’t know, that’s not important rn)
The thing is, they can’t change this number, at all. The only way they can increase their salaries is to increase the minimum wage.
I love this idea, if they want a raise they’d have to raise the federal minimum wage.
Okay, we need you to throw your hat in the ring and start representin’. I would def vote for you.
They only work a few months a year. For example, in USA they are only in session a few days until November, with all of October off.
Have you ever watched them in session? Even when they’re “working” it’s like 90% dead time, moving at a snail’s pace.
What other job pays almost 200K a year, with half of the year off, the very best of health care included, and you can take time off whenever you’d like? Months! …and that job ensures you’ll always be able to out-perform the very best with your “insightful” stock trading?.. and you can appoint your husband as the “ambassador of Bermuda”, and travel to Bermuda on the taxpayer’s dime?
The Democrats are swimming in this shit just like “The Nazis”. Just look at them. Revolting trash, the lot.
I vote, you should vote… but never forget, they are contemptuous vipers who will backstab you and everyone standing with you without a second thought. They won’t even remember your name.
Campaigning to keep that job gets more time than the actual job. They consider it part of what we pay them for, which is utter bullshit.
The whole thing is set up completely wrong in the US. Campaign ads should be prohibited outside of a few weeks before election day. Two year terms are horrible because it means even more campaigning. Revoke citizens united, give both the house and senate 4 year terms and a few other changes to campaign finance laws in particular, and you could have a reasonable congress.
While this sounds good on the surface, the problem is that requiring legislators to live with the same financial difficulties most of us face would lead to sharp increases in direct bribery and overt corruption. As bad as it is anyway that effectively unlimited campaign/PAC contributions can be used to corrupt them, if their personal finances were significantly more trying, it would be much worse, especially given that most legislators have more personal expenses than the average person, including maintaining resdences in both DC and their home state/district. The much better (but also much, much more difficult) solution would be to raise the incomes of most Americans rather than to reduce the income of the legislators.
“Maintaining residences in both DC and their home state/district” I’ve got that solved: We build a dorm facility in Washington and require them to stay there.
Lmao they have all ways been taking bribes. Lobbying is legalized bribery…
yeah i was a hell of a lot more sympathetic to that totally unverified supposition (not argument) when i didn’t believe there was rampant corruption in every branch of local state and federal government. it’s like those pictures of “LOOK WHAT COMMUNISM WOULD GET YOU” and it’s just pictures of homelessness under capitalism.
solution would be to raise the incomes of most Americans rather than to reduce the income of the legislators.
yeah that’s the point. if these chucklefucks kicking back on open corruption were forced (forced) to live on the average american salary they’d be more apt to fix the bullshit holding wages down. that’s my unverified supposition though. actually, now i’ve come to think of it, the fact that our government is subject to corruption despite their high compensation (supposedly) buoying up fragile moralities seems to be evidence against your initial supposition. Let’s try the other way.
I don’t know. On one hand, I think it’s naive to think that dragging these politicians down to our level is going to make them see things through a different lens, as most of them are multi-millionaires anyway and the pay they get is just the gravy on top, and reducing their salaries isn’t going to fix any kind of budgetary problem all on it’s own - the money that they earn off of taxpayers is nothing compared to the national debt.
On the other hand, this cadre of politicians who exercise the most power and authority is so openly corrupt now that they do not even bother to hide it anymore. I feel like you can’t get much worse than we already are without them resorting to literal mustache twirling acts of villainy.
Now, if we were somehow able to make them give up their wealth, to divest themselves from the financial consequences of their actions and live with the lasting legacy that they themselves wrought for others, that might have some effect, but that would require people to be altruistic and principled enough to understand that taking a job as a public servant shouldn’t make you rich, and you should do it for the good of the people you represent.
I want to hire someone who will take over vital aspects of my survival. But I want to do it in a punitive sort of way that makes sure the job will only be taken by people without the education, experience, and talent to demand more.
It’s okay to pay politicians. This genuinely is a “pay more, get more” kind of situation, at least up to a reasonable point.
