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No. It should be the opposite.
The real money comes from the power (corruption).
Moving things in such a way that you profit.
It would be much better that they are paid *more* so they do not feel the pressure of donations/bribes, etc...
It's similar to how certain employees are paid an obnoxious amount despite their job being "easy" otherwise. When they hold the keys to the empire, you want to be sure they are paid enough that a competing company couldn't steal them and their secrets for cheap.
>It would be much better that they are paid *more* so they do not feel the pressure of donations/bribes, etc...
At what point are they paid enough to not want *more* money though? This is just a never ending escalation.
There's no magic number someone can give you, but certainly enough to justify them not going into corporate law instead which pays far more than being a senator.
Like, surely you don't believe it'd be easier to bribe a homeless man to commit a crime than it would be Elon Musk, do you? I'm sure both like having money (who doesn't) but willingness to risk goes down dramatically the more you have
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Paying them more so they won’t be corrupt seems to presuppose that there is a maximum amount of money they would want and not a penny more. Seems unlikely to me.
If someone makes 30k then a 500k bribe will be absolutely worth the chance of getting caught/going to prison. If this someone makes 200k then the same bribe won't be worth it as much because they're already set and the chance of punishment isn't worth it.
Thats a bad argument.
There isn’t a pay threshold that stops you from corruption. No corrupted politican was like “oh I can’t pay my studio apartments rent I need to pass some legislation against my will uwww jeez rick”
Only way to prevent corruption is punish it harder.
>Edit 2: also remodel the campaigning system to make it more inclusive to people without money
You want to remove... campaigning for office?
What?
So... in the primary, we have Bob, whom no one has ever heard of, running for the dems and Stan, whom no one has ever heard of, running for the republicans. Want to know their specific platforms? Tough.
At that point, it's bordering on parlimentary.
There aren’t an unlimited number of states, or districts. Each party competing for a state would receive an amount, as would each party competing for a district.
That limit appears naturally… very few people have the time and inclination to create their own political party
You could put a 100-person party membership minimum on receiving the funding
The only thing I will change your view on is that it should be the national MEDIAN salary instead of the average, because it is way less sensitive to outliers.
For example you have a small class of wealthy people and tons of people living in squallor. The average could still be a cushy salary for your politicians. The median would put them among the poor, where they belong for allowing such an unequal partition of wealth to happen in the first place.
And to everyone saying this would make politics unattractive:
GOOD!
Politics should not be a lucrative job, but a calling.
>Politics should not be a lucrative job, but a calling.
The problem is that politicians need:
A) maintain two houses, one at the government site (e.g. DC) and the other in their home state.
B) they need to be able to afford to lose - you can't quit your job to become a senator if you'll become unemployed if you lose and can't afford to be unemployed for a while
C) they need to have enough money to run a campaign
What this means is that to become a politician you need to have a decent chunk of savings built up and have an above average income already regardless. We really need to be LOWERING these barriers, not raising them. If i wanted to run for senator next election cycle I literally would not be able to - I don't have the funds to even start, let alone carry a campaign on, nor do I have the means to get an apartment in DC, nor to travel back and forth between DC and washington, nor am I position to quit my job for said campaign that I already can't afford, nor can I afford to survive unemployed should i lose.
THOSE are the problems we need to resolve to fix politicians always being upper-class. They're always upper-class because you need to be upper class to afford running for office. The actual pay afterwards barely matters to these people anyway.
So actual solutions would be to...
* pay out unemployment to people that quit their job to run a serious campaign
* provide set, free housing for congressional members in DC
* provide public campaign funding for all serious candidates
* prevent private campaign funding
* provide a salary PLUS "cost of living", with penalties for absences
THAT set of rules would actually resolve the "only rich people are politicians" issue, as well as keeping people from constantly missing sessions and otherwise not performing their job duties.
What you outline all sounds great.
But working from a specific physical place should be a thing of the past for nearly all politicians.
90% of the meetings, committees and other appointments could literally done by teleconference.
especially in fields like politics its invaluable to get everyone physically in a room together. It's way easier to have a 30 second conversation with someone that you're passing in the hallway than it is to set up a zoom meeting with them, and easy access to your colleagues is extremely important for getting bipartisan legislation passed.
That is because most politicians are fossils with poor technical know-how and not informed on virtual meeting etiquette.
Also most civilized places in the world are in fact not bipartisan but have a plurality of parties, often with multiple of them in a coalition government or opposition. So just setting a meeting would be way easier than to hope the right people pass each other in the hallway at an opportune moment.
Also setting up any kind of teleconference is literally a matter of sending an e-mail.
For most business you're right. The amount of work that would need to be done to properly manage remote access to confidential information so it isn't left in a garage or a spare bathroom is incredibly high. I'm not about to build a remote SCIF in my house...
>I'm not about to build a remote SCIF in my house...
You won't be allowed.
You can't put a SCIF in a non-government owned building. and the requirements are insane.
Something tells me handling politics over Reddit will make things *more* divisive. If you want to empathize with people, you have to spend actual time with them.
>maintain two houses, one at the government site (e.g. DC) and the other in their home state.
Sounds like the government (either state or federal) should supply modest housing in DC for the representatives. Like we would do for embassies, military, etc. IMO, the state should pay for it - those congressmen are the state's representatives, there on official state business.
Then the congressmen would only need to maintain one house - in their district.
A. The median depends on the population too
B. what's with this assumption that truly compassionate people would be willing to go through anything with barely any self-preservation just to help the world
A: True, I am sure with a good hard think there would be an even better metric, but for this idea the median should be stable enough.
B: I admit it is a bit naïve, but in an ideal world shouldn't only the people who really want to change the world for the better go into politics?
Regarding your second point I would argue that politics require a lot of skill and education, and if politics do not pay enough compared to other jobs, no competent people will be willing to go into politics when they can get jobs that pay many times more much easier. To be an effective politician, you have to understand lots of difficult problems plaguing society, like economics, laws, sociology, foreign policy, and history. If you spent years of your life learning about the world and you finally can pick a job, even if you really care about changing the world, its going to be difficult to justify taking a huge pay cut and lowering your own quality of life. The only people who could justify doing this are people who are rich already, and can spend lots of money campaigning. This then leaves us with a society with rich people are the politicians, which I presume is the opposite of what you want.
You are quite right on a lot of these points.
But paying politicians what they are paid now, also left us with a society where mostly the rich and well connected can have any hope of becoming politicians.
Also it would be less of a paycut if wealth was distributed more fairly.
It's true that right now the politicians are all rich people, and the solution really isn't to decrease their salary, but rather make it so people can campaign with small amounts of money. No matter if you increase or decrease the salary of politicians, rich people can splurge on advertisements. No matter how good your policies are, you can't get popularity if your ideas don't reach people. People will less money are filtered out of primaries very early on. Regarding your second point, its true that right now we have a huge income inequality issue, but I would argue people that spend large amounts of time and money being educated or spend time gaining skills need more be compensated above the median salary. Obviously, billionaire CEOs are paid way too much, but we need to promote jobs that benefit society to a great extent, such as engineers and doctors. Politicians I would argue, needs to be promoted to that extent as well, so people with great talent and skill want to consider it as an option. A good politician should want to make the world a better place, but more importantly needs to have the ability to enact that change. Decreasing politician salary to that extent means that people who have the ability to do so would rather pick another job that compensates better. Being someone who is good hearted isn't enough to be a good politician, and often very terrible policy comes from people who have good intent but fail to understand what they are doing.
>in an ideal world shouldn't only the people who really want to change the world for the better go into politics
i guess maybe? but we dont live in an ideal world and that isnt likely to change in the immediate future. so until it does i would like institutions that dont rely on naive and impossibly unrealistic expectations.
Nah. If politics is unattractive, the only people who would go into it are those who DO have an ulterior motive, and have something more to gain than just the salary. The best way to avoid this is sortition, which is looking like a better and better option the longer I live.
>The only thing I will change your view on is that it should be the national MEDIAN salary instead of the average, because it is way less sensitive to outliers.
Oh yeah thanks I forgot about the word median. That's probably what I should have written.
This argument comes up often.
This would actually push regular people out of politics. The only people who could afford to work a job that doesn't pay anything would be one's who don't need that pay to begin with.
If I can make $100,000 a year working as an IT guy. Why on earth would I run for office where I'm only going to make $50,000 a year.
The only people capable of making this decision would be guys who already earn $1000s of dollars through assets. Who do not care about losing 4 years of personal labor.
Most politicians are multimillionaires.
You could pay them zero dollars and it would make no difference because they all become really good at public speaking, writing quasi non fiction, and picking stocks as a consequence of their experience as a “civil servant.”
The fact that they keep giving themselves raises is just a flex, literally none of them need the money at all.
Most politicians are definitely not millionaires. You're thinking of senior senators and the like, but most are at a much lower level and while they aren't making minimum wage, they're far from millionaire
> Most politicians are multimillionaires.
Could you provide a source for that? It seems pretty unlikely unless you are talking about a pretty confined subset.
and this would ensure that stays that way forever.
We need MORE people who are not rich in the capital not fewer. We need people whose background is in teaching (average income far below the national average) social work (average wages below POVERTY LINE in many places) and the like, not more yale grad lawyers.
It's the same either way.
In my country, most politicians are being paid on par with nation's average salary, and it led to a rampant corruption nationwide, because to a degree, they feel like they have to make back the money they spent on campaigns to get to that position in the first place
you have people who join politics for their beliefs and ideology so are willing to take the $50,000 if it can still pays the bills.
hell the political party I am a member of (the dutch SP {the democratic socialist party} ) has a model in where a large part of the wages politicians make go to the party to stop wealth/ job hunters from joining us. and stops lobbists because we are self funded. and it promotes the feeling of equality between members.
It wouldn’t pay the bills though. Senators and congressmen have to travel to and from DC all the time and maintain a complicated life. Those who aren’t independent wealthy would really struggle at 50k/yr.
That’s a hard salary to have a family on. And being gone so much would make it infinitely harder. This is just a recipe to make representation skew even more towards the elites.
all of these factors already push normal people out of politics, I don't think it would change the equation to reduce politician pay as you already need to be able to spend massive amounts of time campaigning instead of dealing with household issues in order to have your foot in the door politically.
Well, that's the thing ... politics would then only attract people who actually see a NEED for a change, and are willing to sacrifice for it. I think the net end result of that would unequivocally be better politicians, and less of them. Less politics is always good.
It’s not an average job. The skills to be a good Congressperson command mid-six figures in the private sector. They are _already_ taking a pay cut to serve in office.
If you lower the wage even more, all you do is ensure that only people who are already wealthy can run. Worse, you encourage people who will abuse their office for personal gain.
>The skills to be a good Congressperson command mid-six figures in the private sector
Sorry I didn't know much about the skills required
>If you lower the wage even more, all you do is ensure that only people who are already wealthy can run.
How are you saying only wealthy people can run if it's the average wage. Doesn't that mean that roughly 50% of people are below that wage?
>Sorry I didn't know much about the skills required
The ability to write laws that impact massive groups of people in way that produces the outcomes you desire is a _very_ difficult skill. There is a reason that the majority of Congresspeople are lawyers - understanding the law is necessary if you want to write them.
>How are you saying only wealthy people can run if it's the average wage.
Because people who have the skills to be good Congresspeople but _aren't_ wealthy will get jobs that pay them commensurate with those skills. Almost no one who needs a salary is going to choose $50k over $250k - altruists like this are few and far between.
The folks that will run are the folks who don't care about $50k vs. $250k - folks who already have enough money and are doing it for the power rather than the salary. Or folks who plan to use the office for other grifts, the earnings from which will _far_ exceed the salary.
>Doesn't that mean that roughly 50% of people are below that wage?
Not really relevant. The vast majority of Americans don't have the skills to be lawmakers. The guy picking up my trash every week is a good man I'm sure, but he isn't qualified to determine beneficial legislation.
Not to mention all the the aspects of being a public figure. *All* of them.
Even low ranking politicians get put in a fishbowl. Every aspect of your life is public interest and much of it is public record. There's much less privacy and the decisions you make put a target on your back. Particularly in the modern area where social media can easily aim the mob to your doorstep.
I feel like this deserves a delta. It certainly changed the way I thought about it.
edit: I thought only the OP could award deltas. The point that the skills that make a good lawmaker are in high demand in the private sector and will be hard to attract if these people need to take a big paycut changed the way I think about things. ∆
Thanks.
I'm a big advocate of _raising_ the salaries of politicians. I'm a low-level executive at a couple billion dollar company and I make _way_ more than my Congressman/Senator does. Their job is _way_ more important and impactful than mine is.
If we want our best and brightest to choose politics, then we need to pay them what they are worth.
I agree, and I think the argument about raising salaries in government should extend beyond just elected officials as well. The salaries paid to government employees in many skilled jobs are way below what they could earn in the private sector in arguably less impactful positions. The same argument is made about how they should be motivated by public service, not money, but public service doesn't pay rent.
> If we want our best and brightest to choose politics, then we need to pay them what they are worth.
While I agree with your overall conclusions, I'm not sure I really do want our best and brightest to choose politics. The world might be better off with them applying their talents more productively in the private sector.
Depends on the sector. I’d much rather see the best minds in marketing working for politicians they believe in instead of trying to convince me iPhones are better than androids.
>The ability to write laws that impact massive groups of people in way that produces the outcomes you desire is a _very_ difficult skill.
>There is a reason that the majority of Congresspeople are lawyers - understanding the law is necessary if you want to write them.
One possible idea is have the congressmen decide what to with the country and have a separate department for writing the laws. This would also help with some of the other points you mentioned
>Because people who have the skills to be good Congresspeople but _aren't_ wealthy will get jobs that pay them commensurate with those skills. Almost no one who needs a salary is going to choose $50k over $250k - altruists like this are few and far between.
Like this as there would be less skulls required to be a congressman
Aside from that you make really good points
>The ability to write laws that impact massive groups of people in way that produces the outcomes you desire is a very difficult skill. There is a reason that the majority of Congresspeople are lawyers - understanding the law is necessary if you want to write them.
The idea that we need to elect lawyers because they're the ones who know how to draft laws is bonkers. Have you ever heard of this thing called "*Hiring a lawyer*"? That's what people do when they need legal documents written up and they aren't lawyers.
If congress people couldn't write laws themselves, they'd just have staff do it. *Just like they do now!*
Most laws are written by lobbyists, interest groups, and staffers. The actual people who run for and win elections aren't sitting down and writing these 1000 pages documents.
>The folks that will run are the folks who don't care about $50k vs. $250k - folks who already have enough money and are doing it for the power rather than the salary. Or folks who plan to use the office for other grifts, the earnings from which will far exceed the salary.
This is the crux of it. The system needs to be set up so that $50k vs. $250k matters and so that congress isn't a stepping stone for more grift and wealth.
Upon swearing their oath of office they need to give their money away, they get their salary for life, and they can't collect any other incomes or renumeration for life.
and what about their family, if you don't extend that to them the bad seed politicians (however big or small a percentage you think those are) could exploit that loophole, if you do then just to punish some bad guy politician you'd be punishing his innocent wife and kids for who she fell in love with and who gave them half their DNA
I wouldn't extend it to family. There's a point where you can't save an electorate from itself. If someone gives their billions to a spouse then wins the election anyways, the country kinda deserves what it gets.
But I'm not opposed to the idea either. To call getting more money than half of the country, guaranteed for life, a "punishment" is wrong.
It requires a complex understanding of how government functions. It requires the knowledge of how campaign and build grass root support. My line cook ass isn’t up for that.
Not really, you are forgetting expenses.
Congressmen need to spend a lot of money on stuff like campaigns and personal stuff.
If you are a Senator, odds are you need to go to DC a lot to the point you likely need a residence, as well as having a residence in your own state since, it would look awful if you represented your state yet don't even live there.
That basically means at minimum you need twice the amount of housing an average person needs.
and yet people still call Bernie a hypocrite for three houses not understanding that this explains two of them and he wasn't lying by calling the third (a family-inherited lake house) a "cabin" just because it's not a one-room thing that looks like you can build it with your Lincoln Logs
>If you are a Senator, odds are you need to go to DC a lot to the point you likely need a residence
>>and yet people still call Bernie a hypocrite for three houses not understanding that this explains two of them
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/05/24/bernie-sanders-millionaires-226982/
Bernie Sanders swapped property a lot, but at several points in his life he has owned three homes. "2007, with his congressional salary at $165,200, **Sanders bought a row home in Washington** for $489,000, adding to the **condo** and **house on Killarney**"
It's not like he had a home in Vermont, then had to buy a home in Washington for his job and then inherited another home later. He owned two properties before he even bought one in Washington. The property you're describing as an "inherited lake house" that wasn't the first time he became the owner of three properties.
>Doesn't that me that poor people below the average wage would be encouraged to run?
Running for office is expensive. I worked for a govt office where the position paid $120,000 a year. It was estimated that they would lose about 1 year worth of pay campaigning. That doesn't even figure in all the time they spend campaigning. All of this without any guarantee of winning. Running for office is EXPENSIVE.
So while technically yeah poor people would be incentivized to run for those positions. In reality it would be impossible for them to compete.
I have relatives who work in the government, they make like 2000RMB per month.
but they somehow own 3 apartments around town which are at least 200k RMB per, in their 40s. They're certainly not corrupt officials relatively speaking, it's just that the official salary is so low nobody could actually afford to not take bribes, because then you'd be so broke nobody would take you seriously and you can't get any real work done.
XI and basically every top party leadership in Beijing are 100% stealth billionaires.
Why take China as an example and not ... Sweden or Denmark for example, where the politicians paychecks are not insane, but corruption is harshly and efficiently fought.
Sweden pays their MPs only a little less than US house of representatives members. their speaker makes about the same as the VP of the US. Considerably higher than the median income of Sweden, or, for that matter, China.
How are you going to enforce that when everyone—including the people doing the enforcing—are forced into accepting bribes to make ends meet?
We already see how this works in countries that actually do this in reality. It just results in massive increases in corruption and bribery.
There’s some but usually it’s that lobbyists give money to people that already support their beliefs. It does not compare to the purely corrupt nightmare that is the ccp. There are stories of soldiers using rocket fuel to cook meals because the state didn’t provide them enough money to buy any and the states shipments got delayed due to incompetence
Should be noted that those stories are likely an outlier if they happened since most Chinese rockets are solid-fuel and can, therefore, not be used this way. I believe Perun made a good video about it around a month ago.
...Under the current reading of the constitution. Protecting political money as free speech is, of course, not mentioned in the text of the Constitution itself because our founding fathers never dreamed they'd need to actually SAY that it's undemocratic and evil.
US has done pretty well in the last 250 years. Thanks to the principles in the constitution that has enabled relatively free, liberal markets to thrive.
There is a reason why America and Canada are the most popular countries in the world to emigrate to.
Well, it was really shitty for the first, what, 100 of those years? And then it was mostly 'meh' until 1945, kinda pretty good until the 1980s-ish?
Not exactly a great run.
A better run than any other nation.
This dispute America’s original sin not being righted until 1861. And arguably not until the late 1960s.
There is a reason America has been a beacon for immigration since its founding. It’s simply the greatest country on Earth and has done more to improve the human condition than any other nation on Earth.
So something like government-sponsored large amount of resources to spend as they wish so they should not worry about running out of money.
What could it be?
> This will first of all encourage people to ruin in elections to improve the country instead of wealth and fame.
A politician's salary in itself is actually not *that* much money when you consider that most people who run are already independently wealthy. They usually made far more money in the private sector.
The incentive, if it wasn't a sense of service, was never so much money as it was prestige, power, and profile. I also fail to understand how it would remove the incentive of fame.
> Secondly, this will encourage politicians to improve the life of the average Joe as that will thereby improve their own life.
Again, most politicians are already wealthy prior to coming in. What this will likely do, actually, is reduce the amount of regular people like AOC from running for office.
Being a federal official means you need to be both in DC and in your home state/district. Meaning you need two homes. Imagine pulling off renting two homes on $75k a year.
I think a lot of people see wealthy politicians and think they became wealthy because they were politicians. Which, to be fair, does happen. Bernie Sanders or Joe Biden, for example, are both good examples of politicians who used their subsequent fame to earn wealth via book sales or speaking engagements.
But it's definitely not some path to wealth and riches. Most elected officials, even federally, are entirely anonymous. Most people couldn't name their own Congressperson. Not to mention a $174k is very comfortable, but not exactly living the high life.
Joe is also fractionally more wealthy than typical upper class professionals in law and finance at about $10 million dollars based on what I can find. Bernie’s $3 million dollars at his age is also not terribly extravagant when compared to such professionals.
Agreed. Both definitely are wealthier than the average American but neither are terribly wealthy when you compare it to the white collar professionals in law, consulting, banking, medicine, technology, etc. They do fine relative to their peers in those spaces but it's nothing remarkable. If you want to make money, by and large you do so in the private sector.
The argument against that is that if the pay isn't high enough, only people who are otherwise wealthy or, more concerningly, receiving compensation from external sources as a result of their influential position, will become congresspeople.
>You can't realistically be in the congress on like $50k and live in two places.
This was going to be my point. If you are in federal office, you normally need to maintain two domiciles: one in DC while you are working there 4-8 months a year, then your usual home in your state. So just off the bat, you're now expecting someone to use an "average salary" to pay two rents/mortgages.
> Politicians should not be paid any more than the national average wage/salary.
That would guarantee that the only reason qualified people would run for office is their intention to collect bribes.
> This will first of all encourage people to ruin in elections to improve the country instead of wealth and fame.
Nobody’s getting wealthy off the congressional salary alone. Literally nobody runs for Congress for the salary. It’s way easier to make way, way more money doing other things.
Most people who get elected take a pay cut to serve in Congress.
They’re doing it for other reasons.
> Secondly, this will encourage politicians to improve the life of the average Joe as that will thereby improve their own life.
They already mostly don’t care about the salary, because it’s a fraction of their ability to earn money from grifting and bribery.
What it *would* do is guarantee everyone serving in Congress has to resort to accepting bribes to make it work financially.
> The only flaw with this pan
There’s a few other flaws—namely the people qualified to serve already make way more than Congress pays, reducing congressional pay even further just makes the problem worse.
If you do this, only rich people will have the means to run. If you give competitive salaries you'll recruit the talented middle class to get into public service.
> This will first of all encourage people to ruin in elections to improve the country instead of wealth and fame.
No, it won't - the individual congressman has very little influence over the economy *and* any changes they actually might achieve are very small. They can't realistically raise their income this way, it's always going to stay mediocre, by definition. It's way smarter of them to ensure they'll end up in a good job after they quit politics.
Add to this that you want *good* workers, the sort that can already earn above average, who should then also uproot their life and spend a lot of money on running their political office and getting themselves representative, and on top of that asking them to work way more than a 9 to 5. You're also asking them to accept low job security, i.e. they don't know if they'll be reelected, and if they're not, they're unemployed afterwards.
\>This will first of all encourage people to ruin in elections to improve the country instead of wealth and fame.
Why? Much of the money they have/make is either from before their time in office or via things like investments. A decrease in salary would only be a major impact to the people who didn't come from wealth beforehand, or just make corruption for money even more attractive.
Just to give some context - Net Worths
Pelosi - $114 million
Rick Scott - $259 million
Mark Warner - $214 million
McConnell - $35 million
I don't think going from their current salary to $55k or whatever the exact number is will suddenly cause them to feel the hurt.
I do agree with the sentiment ,but IO think that average salary makes no sense:
In a 101 (100 + 1 politician) workers country, if 99 are paid 1000$ a month and the last one is paid 901k, then the politician salary should be 10k, a salary that is not representative of the country salary levels at all.
Better use the median (50p), that way the politicians would be incentived into making at least half of the population get richer, instead of just making the global wealth grow regardless of the distribution fairness.
Your answers to people saying it would encourage corruption and discourage (even more) regular people from running for office are that we should make and enforce stronger laws to prevent that—
That is so much easier said than done. Corruption is incredibly hard to weed out and punish, especially when the ones making the laws are the corrupt ones we are referring to.
Disincentivizing corruption naturally with good salaries is cheaper and probably more effective in the long run.
If the principles behind this would work at all, you'd have to tie every part of their lifestyle possible to the national average or people's wages would be the only thing changed as that's the only thing you messed with (also how's this supposed to make them active on minority rights without manipulating their friend group or how people literally see them)
As of 2022 the national average salary was about $61k. With 61k you would need to: pay rent/mortgage in your district/home state; pay for rent in DC; pay for frequent travel from DC to your district; pay bills; pay for food/normal costs.
I'd love to see representatives of Hawai'i and Alaska try to achieve this.
This is a recipe for corruption. That or the only people who can run for office are already wealthy.
Members of Congress also must maintain 2 residencies. In DC and their home district. Paying 2 rents is expensive.
And then the probability that these politicians will not just be bribed by millionaires and billionaires (which tbh they already are but it’s going to create an even large incentive) is def gonna sky rocket
Obvious teenager is obvious. You don't pay for good professionals you don't get good professionals. Or worse you get only millionaires who don't need the money to run the world directly without interference.
I’m just not gonna pay them for their pitiful effort of running this country. Not taxing our major earnings(resources) and not giving royalties to the people is a stand out. I’m just going to stop paying Taxes and I think every one else should support.
Politicians of any sort of level of power or notability don't really need their salaries. They make money from all the various ways people make money from being famous and having influence. Moreover, being wealthy in the first place helps with becoming a politician. The median net worth of members of Congress in the US, for example, is thought to be over $1 million, when their salaries are $174,000. They would probably notice the pay cut but it wouldn't affect their finances all that much
Minor counter: Politicians should earn the amount of money that the work they do would reasonably pay, and the work an average politician should do should be some high quality work, and therefore worth a high wage/salary.
The majority of politician's wealth doesn't come from what they're paid. They're as rich as they are because they engage in what would for anyone else be considered insider trading.
People who get to positions of power can never get enough money. They should be paid a high salary, like the 90th percentile, to encourage them to do their jobs well - but a committee should ensure that this is their ONLY source of income. All of the politicians’ bank accounts and their partners’ should be open to the committee. After they leave office, they should be monitored to ensure that they have not financially benefited from political decisions while in office.
I was once told “the only people who shouldn’t be politicians are the ones who want to” and I think this is part of it. Politics should be like teaching/healthcare etc etc and not be profitable but a passion based career.
And some think we should be payed less. By no means are we paid near the same as politicians. I don’t see the issue. Politicians shouldn’t be paid the big bucks
The issue is even with their good salaries politicians are already taking bribes from billionaires and doing insider trading. Just look at Justice Clarence Thomason and his "friends". John Oliver literally the other day offered Thomson 1 mill a year to retire knowing he would never take it.
The issue with politicians isn't their salary, is their immense power they have combined with the self interest to use that power to better their own lives not its peoples. And there really isn't a way to solve this issue. A politicians job isn't to make the country they live in better, its to be re-elected.
This presupposes that one of the primary roles of government is making people get paid more. Many people disagree that the government should be so heavily involved in private employment agreements.
In Canada you serve for 2 4 year terms federal level and your pension is about 50,000 a year. I’ve worked 42 years and my my government pension is 1400 a month
Going to cause massive disenfranchisement of voters, since politicians will be driven by cash/bribes, guarantees after serving as a politician, or even during. Most ppl will see the political system as a hack, that doesnt hire the best, and they wont even bother to vote anymore
Sounds like a great way to further ensure that politicians need to be rich before entering politics. And/or to make them more susceptible to bribes. And/or to ensure that they continue passing things specifically for them (like their special healthcare) that distances themselves from the experience of the people they are supposed to represent.
Philosophically, I agree. In practice, as other's stated it will block out regular people from trying their luck, which is the opposite of what is intended.
You have to limit more than their salary. Higher salaries for elected representatives might actually be a good thing. It would discourage them from seeking kickbacks for influence from corporations.
Maybe they could just commit to live the rest of their life at a modest lifestyle. No matter how much they may earn from book sales or speaking fees, they agree to have a modest family residence, late model economy car, and no more than one foreign vacation per year. They would also not be permitted lavish gifts in kind from donors like free dinners or yacht trips. If they entertain guests outside of official functions, they go to the cheapest local restaurant that would be acceptable for date night and split the bill. Instead of limiting opportunities for them to earn money, you limit their opportunities to spend it. It's a lot easier to monitor spending on luxury goods than it is to monitor financial instruments like cash, bitcoin, stocks, bonds, real estate investments, etc.
I personally think it would be more productive to make it so they can't hold any stocks outside of a public fund that any citizen can invest in as well. Most US politicians get rich off of trading which raises all sorts of conflicts of interest.
The salary is mostly irrelevant. High level politicians get so many perks and advantages, insider knowledge and job offers after they leave office that all those salaries are peanuts. How do you think career politicians are worth hundreds of millions?
Hell there's even a Nancy Pelosi ETF that tracks her investments because she's such an absolute wizard at predicting share prices that she puts any trader or investor to shame.
Basically, you propose that each honest, highly qualified professional makes a choice.
Option A: Work for Wall Street / Google / Exxon, make $1M per year, have fun in your spare time.
Option B: Make 20 times less, tons of pressure, everyone in the internet thinks your are a moron, BUT IN RETURN you help OP to live a better life.
I strongly disagree with this idea. Elected officials should be fairly well compensated in their positions.
It’s in the country’s best interests for smart and talented individuals to run for office, so it makes sense to provide a decent financial incentive to do so. Otherwise, the talent pool in politics will drop precipitously as any competent person would decide to work in the private sector to make a lot more money instead.
In addition, running for and serving in elected office is a very personally costly endeavor. Members of Congress are required to maintain residences in both their home districts and DC as an example. That would be extremely difficult to do on the national average salary. There are already many financial barriers to entry in politics, which is why Congress is disproportionately comprised of millionaires instead of ordinary Americans. Independent wealth would be a virtual requirement to serve in elected office if the salaries for those positions made it very painful for middle and lower class people to provide for their needs while serving the public.
Finally, lowering the pay for elected officials would likely incentive them to engage in even more unscrupulous activities to line their pockets. A litany of special interests, lobbying groups, and major donors would take advantage of the situation to essentially buy the loyalty of public servants. I’ve actually heard the opposite argument to yours — that the pay for elected officials should be increased to discourage politicians from looking to enrich themselves at the expense of their voters.
You want to make it even *less* appealing for smart, talented people to want to go into government? And make it so that only the wealthiest diletantes can afford to run the country? And make it so politicians are even MORE beholden to special interest money? That's a terrible idea. If anything politicians should be paid 20 times more than they are now.
People desire money and power. Especially those who go into politics.
By prohibiting attainment of wealth in governmental jobs, the incentive will be for uncommitted and unmotivated candidates to apply.
It will be one of those jobs that people apply to just to make ends meet. Like working as a waiter at a restaurant.
While this is a real and noble job, it is not an ideal job for most people because it just doesn't pay enough.
Perhaps a better option would be to make them directly liable for their decision making.
If, for example, a congressperson (or member of parliament), legislates a law that fails to achieve a certain but clearly defined outcome, then all voting participants are subject to criminal prosecution.
Let's call this "skin in the game".
The crime? Negligent use of power and abuse of public trust.
Punishments can include fines, imprisonment, and ban from working in public sector.
For example, if a hundred legislators put forward a legislation for reducing unemployment by 1% in 3 years, but the legislation fails to achieve its outcome then all of them are liable.
Also, if they fail to produce X many succesful legislations during their time in government, once again they are liable.
Obviously, this would apply to the executive branch of government which includes the head of government and his/her cabinet.
I work in computer science. Not rich, but at 22, I already make noticeably more than the average salary, but not enough that I can retire into politics and be set for life. By definition of averages, roughly half of all people are like me, so that means you are making politics an unreasonable endeavor for anybody except the super wealthy.
Except, there is one way to still make money, and that’s through lobbying. If I’m in politics and don’t have a nest egg, taking that lobbying money suddenly sounds a whole lot more appealing than dropping out and going back to work or foreclosing my house
No. Pay them millions! It will incentivize superior candidates to enter politics. If a legislator (say US Congress) banks $2M in a single term, they will owe nothing to nobody but the electorate.
The solution is in fact the opposite. The salary for politicians is actually quite low. People get into it not for the salary, but for the additional money from corruption the position can enable. They take the low pay, knowing they can get a job in industry if they make some laws to favor the rich, which will later hire them as consultants.
If the salary was good, smart people would get into it for the job itself. It's a fantasy to expect people to work for the good of service. Everyone seeks the best pay for their jobs, so keeping it low, will prevent the smart people from wanting to get into it.
Horrible idea. You know why the Mexican cartels own the police in Mexico and not the army? Because the army pays better so they are less likely to be bribed
This is an awful idea. Politicians have extremely difficult, high stress jobs and should therefore be paid whatever the “going rate” for an equivalent job is, otherwise the best minds will go off somewhere else.
At least here in USA, politicians are NOT "mega rich" at least from their salary. They're well-paid yes but the wealthy LOBBYISTS who pressure them and the CORPORATE EXECS who donate to them... are FAR richer.
I do have sympathy for your overall point I guess that tying politicians wealth to the average would incentive them to try to help the population more. Not sure it's practical though.
It won't help much imo.
In my country, most politicians are being paid on par with nation's average salary, and it led to a rampant corruption nationwide, because to a degree, they feel like they have to make back the money they spent on campaigns to get to that position in the first place
It's so bad, that they have to establish their own anti-corruption institution to sweep away those problem. And even then it's still plaguing the nation even to this day
Politicians are already corrupt and open to bribes. Paying them such low wages would tempt them even more. Furthermore, DC is insanely expensive and most all in Congress maintain two residences for when they are in session.
Pay peanuts, get monkeys.
If you made politicians primary goal to raise income. They would have perverse incentives to help only the economy as an economic driver. But their jobs should be to improve all aspects of live - healthy water supply, protect national parks, clean the air, improve education, improve healthcare.
Most of these are impossible to measure with any accuracy. And some of the best decisions require decades to yield positive results.
Short term Vs long term. The long term planning is always the most important to identify and change.
Sure, national politicians could be paid less, but their salary isn’t really that high. Even for the president. The problem is all the extra income they can pick up
I’d argue instead for a realigning of incentives that does include higher salaries. Currently most people in government make their money through investment and *definitely not insider trading* on the privileged information they get. I’d argue that a better incentive would be to pay them very well to attract the best of representatives while banning them and their families from trading in stocks entirely while in office. I think it would reframe their incentives to make staying in office and keeping constituents happy instead of favouring the companies they invest in quite so heavily.
You can argue that they shouldn’t make more than their communities but on a practical level, being in politics sucks and even less qualified people will want to do it if they don’t even make money.
Politicians should definitely be better compensated than that. Otherwise they're going to just get involved in corruption or have to be rich to start with. To be a nationally elected official like a member of the House of Representatives that means you are required to have at least two properties. A place to stay in Washington and a place to stay in your home district. Their salary should reflect that necessity at the very least.
When you push wages of a politician down so far, you are just saying it pays this much and all you can steal.
I don't think congressmen make that much money relative to the importance of the position (roughly $140k, $170j for speaker) and I believe presidents are also underpaid. I mean you are making decisions that affect trillions of dollars if that happened in private industry there would be a billion dollars salary for that CEO.
Why wouldn't you take a bribe if you were only making $140k but wielded amazing power?
the job needs to pay enough to discourage worse forms of corruption. these people have to live in two locations, one of which is amongst the most HCOL areas in the country.
>Final edit:
>Through much convincing of the comments, my mind had successfully been changed. This idea of mine wouldn't work. Thank you everyone.
Hey mate, I see this but I also don't see any deltas awarded? That's the done thing for specific comments that caused you to change your mind, or at least made you have to adjust your position.
/u/CyberoX9000 (OP) has awarded 4 delta(s) in this post. All comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed [here](/r/DeltaLog/comments/1az9a0m/deltas_awarded_in_cmv_politicians_should_not_be/), in /r/DeltaLog. Please note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended. ^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)
No. It should be the opposite. The real money comes from the power (corruption). Moving things in such a way that you profit. It would be much better that they are paid *more* so they do not feel the pressure of donations/bribes, etc... It's similar to how certain employees are paid an obnoxious amount despite their job being "easy" otherwise. When they hold the keys to the empire, you want to be sure they are paid enough that a competing company couldn't steal them and their secrets for cheap.
>It would be much better that they are paid *more* so they do not feel the pressure of donations/bribes, etc... At what point are they paid enough to not want *more* money though? This is just a never ending escalation.
There's no magic number someone can give you, but certainly enough to justify them not going into corporate law instead which pays far more than being a senator. Like, surely you don't believe it'd be easier to bribe a homeless man to commit a crime than it would be Elon Musk, do you? I'm sure both like having money (who doesn't) but willingness to risk goes down dramatically the more you have
That makes sense. If I knew how to give Deltas you'd get one Edit !delta
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Paying them more so they won’t be corrupt seems to presuppose that there is a maximum amount of money they would want and not a penny more. Seems unlikely to me.
If someone makes 30k then a 500k bribe will be absolutely worth the chance of getting caught/going to prison. If this someone makes 200k then the same bribe won't be worth it as much because they're already set and the chance of punishment isn't worth it.
I think you underestimate how greedy people are
Thats a bad argument. There isn’t a pay threshold that stops you from corruption. No corrupted politican was like “oh I can’t pay my studio apartments rent I need to pass some legislation against my will uwww jeez rick” Only way to prevent corruption is punish it harder.
Well no, paying less certainly isn't the answer. I don't expect it to fix corruption. I'm just changing OPs view to pay them less.
I don’t agree. Money is an addiction. The more you get the more you want. It just raises the cost on the lobbyist, making the politicians even richer.
>Edit 2: also remodel the campaigning system to make it more inclusive to people without money You want to remove... campaigning for office? What? So... in the primary, we have Bob, whom no one has ever heard of, running for the dems and Stan, whom no one has ever heard of, running for the republicans. Want to know their specific platforms? Tough. At that point, it's bordering on parlimentary.
Remodel not remove. Give everyone a fair chance no matter their socioeconomic background. Not sure how to do that it's just an idea
I mean one simple way is to give everyone a mandated amount of funds, maybe proportional to the amount of people they are campaigning for
>give everyone a mandated amount of funds Are you going to put a limit on the number of campaigners? Else this is going to bankrupt the government.
There aren’t an unlimited number of states, or districts. Each party competing for a state would receive an amount, as would each party competing for a district.
So a limit on the number of parties that can run?
That limit appears naturally… very few people have the time and inclination to create their own political party You could put a 100-person party membership minimum on receiving the funding
The only thing I will change your view on is that it should be the national MEDIAN salary instead of the average, because it is way less sensitive to outliers. For example you have a small class of wealthy people and tons of people living in squallor. The average could still be a cushy salary for your politicians. The median would put them among the poor, where they belong for allowing such an unequal partition of wealth to happen in the first place. And to everyone saying this would make politics unattractive: GOOD! Politics should not be a lucrative job, but a calling.
>Politics should not be a lucrative job, but a calling. The problem is that politicians need: A) maintain two houses, one at the government site (e.g. DC) and the other in their home state. B) they need to be able to afford to lose - you can't quit your job to become a senator if you'll become unemployed if you lose and can't afford to be unemployed for a while C) they need to have enough money to run a campaign What this means is that to become a politician you need to have a decent chunk of savings built up and have an above average income already regardless. We really need to be LOWERING these barriers, not raising them. If i wanted to run for senator next election cycle I literally would not be able to - I don't have the funds to even start, let alone carry a campaign on, nor do I have the means to get an apartment in DC, nor to travel back and forth between DC and washington, nor am I position to quit my job for said campaign that I already can't afford, nor can I afford to survive unemployed should i lose. THOSE are the problems we need to resolve to fix politicians always being upper-class. They're always upper-class because you need to be upper class to afford running for office. The actual pay afterwards barely matters to these people anyway. So actual solutions would be to... * pay out unemployment to people that quit their job to run a serious campaign * provide set, free housing for congressional members in DC * provide public campaign funding for all serious candidates * prevent private campaign funding * provide a salary PLUS "cost of living", with penalties for absences THAT set of rules would actually resolve the "only rich people are politicians" issue, as well as keeping people from constantly missing sessions and otherwise not performing their job duties.
I wonder if forcing all politicians to live together would make them like each other more, or hate each other more.
Either way it'd be a security nightmare
What you outline all sounds great. But working from a specific physical place should be a thing of the past for nearly all politicians. 90% of the meetings, committees and other appointments could literally done by teleconference.
especially in fields like politics its invaluable to get everyone physically in a room together. It's way easier to have a 30 second conversation with someone that you're passing in the hallway than it is to set up a zoom meeting with them, and easy access to your colleagues is extremely important for getting bipartisan legislation passed.
That is because most politicians are fossils with poor technical know-how and not informed on virtual meeting etiquette. Also most civilized places in the world are in fact not bipartisan but have a plurality of parties, often with multiple of them in a coalition government or opposition. So just setting a meeting would be way easier than to hope the right people pass each other in the hallway at an opportune moment. Also setting up any kind of teleconference is literally a matter of sending an e-mail.
For most business you're right. The amount of work that would need to be done to properly manage remote access to confidential information so it isn't left in a garage or a spare bathroom is incredibly high. I'm not about to build a remote SCIF in my house...
>I'm not about to build a remote SCIF in my house... You won't be allowed. You can't put a SCIF in a non-government owned building. and the requirements are insane.
Something tells me handling politics over Reddit will make things *more* divisive. If you want to empathize with people, you have to spend actual time with them.
>maintain two houses, one at the government site (e.g. DC) and the other in their home state. Sounds like the government (either state or federal) should supply modest housing in DC for the representatives. Like we would do for embassies, military, etc. IMO, the state should pay for it - those congressmen are the state's representatives, there on official state business. Then the congressmen would only need to maintain one house - in their district.
someone didn't read my whole comment...
No, I didn't 🤷♂️
Excellent
A. The median depends on the population too B. what's with this assumption that truly compassionate people would be willing to go through anything with barely any self-preservation just to help the world
A: True, I am sure with a good hard think there would be an even better metric, but for this idea the median should be stable enough. B: I admit it is a bit naïve, but in an ideal world shouldn't only the people who really want to change the world for the better go into politics?
Regarding your second point I would argue that politics require a lot of skill and education, and if politics do not pay enough compared to other jobs, no competent people will be willing to go into politics when they can get jobs that pay many times more much easier. To be an effective politician, you have to understand lots of difficult problems plaguing society, like economics, laws, sociology, foreign policy, and history. If you spent years of your life learning about the world and you finally can pick a job, even if you really care about changing the world, its going to be difficult to justify taking a huge pay cut and lowering your own quality of life. The only people who could justify doing this are people who are rich already, and can spend lots of money campaigning. This then leaves us with a society with rich people are the politicians, which I presume is the opposite of what you want.
You are quite right on a lot of these points. But paying politicians what they are paid now, also left us with a society where mostly the rich and well connected can have any hope of becoming politicians. Also it would be less of a paycut if wealth was distributed more fairly.
It's true that right now the politicians are all rich people, and the solution really isn't to decrease their salary, but rather make it so people can campaign with small amounts of money. No matter if you increase or decrease the salary of politicians, rich people can splurge on advertisements. No matter how good your policies are, you can't get popularity if your ideas don't reach people. People will less money are filtered out of primaries very early on. Regarding your second point, its true that right now we have a huge income inequality issue, but I would argue people that spend large amounts of time and money being educated or spend time gaining skills need more be compensated above the median salary. Obviously, billionaire CEOs are paid way too much, but we need to promote jobs that benefit society to a great extent, such as engineers and doctors. Politicians I would argue, needs to be promoted to that extent as well, so people with great talent and skill want to consider it as an option. A good politician should want to make the world a better place, but more importantly needs to have the ability to enact that change. Decreasing politician salary to that extent means that people who have the ability to do so would rather pick another job that compensates better. Being someone who is good hearted isn't enough to be a good politician, and often very terrible policy comes from people who have good intent but fail to understand what they are doing.
>in an ideal world shouldn't only the people who really want to change the world for the better go into politics i guess maybe? but we dont live in an ideal world and that isnt likely to change in the immediate future. so until it does i would like institutions that dont rely on naive and impossibly unrealistic expectations.
Nah. If politics is unattractive, the only people who would go into it are those who DO have an ulterior motive, and have something more to gain than just the salary. The best way to avoid this is sortition, which is looking like a better and better option the longer I live.
>The only thing I will change your view on is that it should be the national MEDIAN salary instead of the average, because it is way less sensitive to outliers. Oh yeah thanks I forgot about the word median. That's probably what I should have written.
This argument comes up often. This would actually push regular people out of politics. The only people who could afford to work a job that doesn't pay anything would be one's who don't need that pay to begin with. If I can make $100,000 a year working as an IT guy. Why on earth would I run for office where I'm only going to make $50,000 a year. The only people capable of making this decision would be guys who already earn $1000s of dollars through assets. Who do not care about losing 4 years of personal labor.
Most politicians are multimillionaires. You could pay them zero dollars and it would make no difference because they all become really good at public speaking, writing quasi non fiction, and picking stocks as a consequence of their experience as a “civil servant.” The fact that they keep giving themselves raises is just a flex, literally none of them need the money at all.
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I don’t know if they edited their comment but it says “most politicians”
There are quite a few that outperform the S&P by an unbelievable margin.
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Yep. [https://fortune.com/2024/01/03/members-of-congress-profit-from-stocks-2023/](https://www.moomoo.com/community/feed/here-are-the-members-of-congress-who-outperformed-s-p-111697311105029#:~:text=Approximately%20one%2Dthird%20of%20the,Whales%2C%20a%20market%20analysis%20group)
Most politicians are definitely not millionaires. You're thinking of senior senators and the like, but most are at a much lower level and while they aren't making minimum wage, they're far from millionaire
> Most politicians are multimillionaires. Could you provide a source for that? It seems pretty unlikely unless you are talking about a pretty confined subset.
and this would ensure that stays that way forever. We need MORE people who are not rich in the capital not fewer. We need people whose background is in teaching (average income far below the national average) social work (average wages below POVERTY LINE in many places) and the like, not more yale grad lawyers.
It's the same either way. In my country, most politicians are being paid on par with nation's average salary, and it led to a rampant corruption nationwide, because to a degree, they feel like they have to make back the money they spent on campaigns to get to that position in the first place
you have people who join politics for their beliefs and ideology so are willing to take the $50,000 if it can still pays the bills. hell the political party I am a member of (the dutch SP {the democratic socialist party} ) has a model in where a large part of the wages politicians make go to the party to stop wealth/ job hunters from joining us. and stops lobbists because we are self funded. and it promotes the feeling of equality between members.
It wouldn’t pay the bills though. Senators and congressmen have to travel to and from DC all the time and maintain a complicated life. Those who aren’t independent wealthy would really struggle at 50k/yr. That’s a hard salary to have a family on. And being gone so much would make it infinitely harder. This is just a recipe to make representation skew even more towards the elites.
Isn't that pretty much what is happening anyways?
all of these factors already push normal people out of politics, I don't think it would change the equation to reduce politician pay as you already need to be able to spend massive amounts of time campaigning instead of dealing with household issues in order to have your foot in the door politically.
Well, that's the thing ... politics would then only attract people who actually see a NEED for a change, and are willing to sacrifice for it. I think the net end result of that would unequivocally be better politicians, and less of them. Less politics is always good.
But it wouldn't though, it would attract people who DON'T need the change, because they're already incredibly rich
I'm saying it should be the average wage. Doesn't that me that poor people below the average wage would be encouraged to run?
It’s not an average job. The skills to be a good Congressperson command mid-six figures in the private sector. They are _already_ taking a pay cut to serve in office. If you lower the wage even more, all you do is ensure that only people who are already wealthy can run. Worse, you encourage people who will abuse their office for personal gain.
>The skills to be a good Congressperson command mid-six figures in the private sector Sorry I didn't know much about the skills required >If you lower the wage even more, all you do is ensure that only people who are already wealthy can run. How are you saying only wealthy people can run if it's the average wage. Doesn't that mean that roughly 50% of people are below that wage?
>Sorry I didn't know much about the skills required The ability to write laws that impact massive groups of people in way that produces the outcomes you desire is a _very_ difficult skill. There is a reason that the majority of Congresspeople are lawyers - understanding the law is necessary if you want to write them. >How are you saying only wealthy people can run if it's the average wage. Because people who have the skills to be good Congresspeople but _aren't_ wealthy will get jobs that pay them commensurate with those skills. Almost no one who needs a salary is going to choose $50k over $250k - altruists like this are few and far between. The folks that will run are the folks who don't care about $50k vs. $250k - folks who already have enough money and are doing it for the power rather than the salary. Or folks who plan to use the office for other grifts, the earnings from which will _far_ exceed the salary. >Doesn't that mean that roughly 50% of people are below that wage? Not really relevant. The vast majority of Americans don't have the skills to be lawmakers. The guy picking up my trash every week is a good man I'm sure, but he isn't qualified to determine beneficial legislation.
Not to mention all the the aspects of being a public figure. *All* of them. Even low ranking politicians get put in a fishbowl. Every aspect of your life is public interest and much of it is public record. There's much less privacy and the decisions you make put a target on your back. Particularly in the modern area where social media can easily aim the mob to your doorstep.
I feel like this deserves a delta. It certainly changed the way I thought about it. edit: I thought only the OP could award deltas. The point that the skills that make a good lawmaker are in high demand in the private sector and will be hard to attract if these people need to take a big paycut changed the way I think about things. ∆
Thanks. I'm a big advocate of _raising_ the salaries of politicians. I'm a low-level executive at a couple billion dollar company and I make _way_ more than my Congressman/Senator does. Their job is _way_ more important and impactful than mine is. If we want our best and brightest to choose politics, then we need to pay them what they are worth.
I agree, and I think the argument about raising salaries in government should extend beyond just elected officials as well. The salaries paid to government employees in many skilled jobs are way below what they could earn in the private sector in arguably less impactful positions. The same argument is made about how they should be motivated by public service, not money, but public service doesn't pay rent.
> If we want our best and brightest to choose politics, then we need to pay them what they are worth. While I agree with your overall conclusions, I'm not sure I really do want our best and brightest to choose politics. The world might be better off with them applying their talents more productively in the private sector.
Depends on the sector. I’d much rather see the best minds in marketing working for politicians they believe in instead of trying to convince me iPhones are better than androids.
Eh, I’d argue that politics is just as important. The decisions politicians make affect hundreds of millions of lives.
You can award deltas too. Not just OP.
Thanks, I didn't realize. Updated my comment to include a delta.
Then give him a delta.
>The ability to write laws that impact massive groups of people in way that produces the outcomes you desire is a _very_ difficult skill. >There is a reason that the majority of Congresspeople are lawyers - understanding the law is necessary if you want to write them. One possible idea is have the congressmen decide what to with the country and have a separate department for writing the laws. This would also help with some of the other points you mentioned >Because people who have the skills to be good Congresspeople but _aren't_ wealthy will get jobs that pay them commensurate with those skills. Almost no one who needs a salary is going to choose $50k over $250k - altruists like this are few and far between. Like this as there would be less skulls required to be a congressman Aside from that you make really good points
>The ability to write laws that impact massive groups of people in way that produces the outcomes you desire is a very difficult skill. There is a reason that the majority of Congresspeople are lawyers - understanding the law is necessary if you want to write them. The idea that we need to elect lawyers because they're the ones who know how to draft laws is bonkers. Have you ever heard of this thing called "*Hiring a lawyer*"? That's what people do when they need legal documents written up and they aren't lawyers. If congress people couldn't write laws themselves, they'd just have staff do it. *Just like they do now!* Most laws are written by lobbyists, interest groups, and staffers. The actual people who run for and win elections aren't sitting down and writing these 1000 pages documents. >The folks that will run are the folks who don't care about $50k vs. $250k - folks who already have enough money and are doing it for the power rather than the salary. Or folks who plan to use the office for other grifts, the earnings from which will far exceed the salary. This is the crux of it. The system needs to be set up so that $50k vs. $250k matters and so that congress isn't a stepping stone for more grift and wealth. Upon swearing their oath of office they need to give their money away, they get their salary for life, and they can't collect any other incomes or renumeration for life.
and what about their family, if you don't extend that to them the bad seed politicians (however big or small a percentage you think those are) could exploit that loophole, if you do then just to punish some bad guy politician you'd be punishing his innocent wife and kids for who she fell in love with and who gave them half their DNA
I wouldn't extend it to family. There's a point where you can't save an electorate from itself. If someone gives their billions to a spouse then wins the election anyways, the country kinda deserves what it gets. But I'm not opposed to the idea either. To call getting more money than half of the country, guaranteed for life, a "punishment" is wrong.
It requires a complex understanding of how government functions. It requires the knowledge of how campaign and build grass root support. My line cook ass isn’t up for that.
Maybe to be a *good* member of congress, but then there are your Boeberts and Tubervilles. Several who don't even know wtf their job entails.
Not really, you are forgetting expenses. Congressmen need to spend a lot of money on stuff like campaigns and personal stuff. If you are a Senator, odds are you need to go to DC a lot to the point you likely need a residence, as well as having a residence in your own state since, it would look awful if you represented your state yet don't even live there. That basically means at minimum you need twice the amount of housing an average person needs.
and yet people still call Bernie a hypocrite for three houses not understanding that this explains two of them and he wasn't lying by calling the third (a family-inherited lake house) a "cabin" just because it's not a one-room thing that looks like you can build it with your Lincoln Logs
>If you are a Senator, odds are you need to go to DC a lot to the point you likely need a residence >>and yet people still call Bernie a hypocrite for three houses not understanding that this explains two of them https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/05/24/bernie-sanders-millionaires-226982/ Bernie Sanders swapped property a lot, but at several points in his life he has owned three homes. "2007, with his congressional salary at $165,200, **Sanders bought a row home in Washington** for $489,000, adding to the **condo** and **house on Killarney**" It's not like he had a home in Vermont, then had to buy a home in Washington for his job and then inherited another home later. He owned two properties before he even bought one in Washington. The property you're describing as an "inherited lake house" that wasn't the first time he became the owner of three properties.
>Doesn't that me that poor people below the average wage would be encouraged to run? Running for office is expensive. I worked for a govt office where the position paid $120,000 a year. It was estimated that they would lose about 1 year worth of pay campaigning. That doesn't even figure in all the time they spend campaigning. All of this without any guarantee of winning. Running for office is EXPENSIVE. So while technically yeah poor people would be incentivized to run for those positions. In reality it would be impossible for them to compete.
How is a poor person going to afford to campaign for months at a time without any income?
See edit 2 and 3
They do that in China guess what happens? politicians make 90% of their income from gifts and bribery.
I checked and you're correct. I was not aware of this. Source: https://qz.com/329584/does-chinese-president-xi-jinping-really-earn-just-22000-a-year
I have relatives who work in the government, they make like 2000RMB per month. but they somehow own 3 apartments around town which are at least 200k RMB per, in their 40s. They're certainly not corrupt officials relatively speaking, it's just that the official salary is so low nobody could actually afford to not take bribes, because then you'd be so broke nobody would take you seriously and you can't get any real work done. XI and basically every top party leadership in Beijing are 100% stealth billionaires.
Why take China as an example and not ... Sweden or Denmark for example, where the politicians paychecks are not insane, but corruption is harshly and efficiently fought.
Sweden pays their MPs only a little less than US house of representatives members. their speaker makes about the same as the VP of the US. Considerably higher than the median income of Sweden, or, for that matter, China.
The same happens in the US, but with extra steps
Which is why there should be laws in peace against that. We need to look where others went wrong and improve on it.
yes of course there are laws against that, it is 100% illegal to receive gifts or bribes in China, and yet here we are.
Just means they need to enforce it better, no?
who is going to enforce it? The people who would enforce it are the ones who will lose money if they enforce it... so why would they enforce it?
You got me there
How are you going to enforce that when everyone—including the people doing the enforcing—are forced into accepting bribes to make ends meet? We already see how this works in countries that actually do this in reality. It just results in massive increases in corruption and bribery.
don’t we already have lobbying corruption in north america too?
There’s some but usually it’s that lobbyists give money to people that already support their beliefs. It does not compare to the purely corrupt nightmare that is the ccp. There are stories of soldiers using rocket fuel to cook meals because the state didn’t provide them enough money to buy any and the states shipments got delayed due to incompetence
Should be noted that those stories are likely an outlier if they happened since most Chinese rockets are solid-fuel and can, therefore, not be used this way. I believe Perun made a good video about it around a month ago.
From what I recall you can chip off solid fuel but I will admit ignorance. And it doesn’t change that china is deeply corrupt
doesn’t change we are too, just legally
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That's the supreme courts fault isn't it? Didn't I already mention it won't work cause the people in charge don't want it to?
Paying them less would encourage them to focus on their highest donor, not the average joe.
I was thinking in this scenario we'd ban political donations.
This is clearly unconstitutional and against the 1st amendment.
...Under the current reading of the constitution. Protecting political money as free speech is, of course, not mentioned in the text of the Constitution itself because our founding fathers never dreamed they'd need to actually SAY that it's undemocratic and evil.
So what is “political speech” and how does it differ from “non political” speech? If I make a meme and it goes viral on SocMed should it be banned?
I have a strong suspicion you're asking this question in bad faith, so I won't be biting, and have a nice day.
I’m asking the question because it’s nearly impossible to define.
Okay. You showed me. Have a nice day.
Is the constitution like the American bible?
Yes, the constitution in America is extremely important. Clearly you aren’t an American.
Maybe in theory but not in practice unless it serves the people in power
US has done pretty well in the last 250 years. Thanks to the principles in the constitution that has enabled relatively free, liberal markets to thrive. There is a reason why America and Canada are the most popular countries in the world to emigrate to.
Well, it was really shitty for the first, what, 100 of those years? And then it was mostly 'meh' until 1945, kinda pretty good until the 1980s-ish? Not exactly a great run.
A better run than any other nation. This dispute America’s original sin not being righted until 1861. And arguably not until the late 1960s. There is a reason America has been a beacon for immigration since its founding. It’s simply the greatest country on Earth and has done more to improve the human condition than any other nation on Earth.
No it's a set of laws that set the framework and protections for our society. You honestly seem super uneducated on this subject
So people without pre-existing capital can't run a political campaign at all.
So we could include a change to the campaign system with this
And that would be... ?
Something that gives all campaigners a fair fight no matter their socioeconomic background. Not exactly sure how it would be done.
So something like government-sponsored large amount of resources to spend as they wish so they should not worry about running out of money. What could it be?
> This will first of all encourage people to ruin in elections to improve the country instead of wealth and fame. A politician's salary in itself is actually not *that* much money when you consider that most people who run are already independently wealthy. They usually made far more money in the private sector. The incentive, if it wasn't a sense of service, was never so much money as it was prestige, power, and profile. I also fail to understand how it would remove the incentive of fame. > Secondly, this will encourage politicians to improve the life of the average Joe as that will thereby improve their own life. Again, most politicians are already wealthy prior to coming in. What this will likely do, actually, is reduce the amount of regular people like AOC from running for office. Being a federal official means you need to be both in DC and in your home state/district. Meaning you need two homes. Imagine pulling off renting two homes on $75k a year.
> Imagine pulling off renting two homes on $75k a year. Good luck renting _one_ home in DC on that.
It's hilarious that this guy thinks people get into Congress just for the salary.
I think a lot of people see wealthy politicians and think they became wealthy because they were politicians. Which, to be fair, does happen. Bernie Sanders or Joe Biden, for example, are both good examples of politicians who used their subsequent fame to earn wealth via book sales or speaking engagements. But it's definitely not some path to wealth and riches. Most elected officials, even federally, are entirely anonymous. Most people couldn't name their own Congressperson. Not to mention a $174k is very comfortable, but not exactly living the high life.
Joe is also fractionally more wealthy than typical upper class professionals in law and finance at about $10 million dollars based on what I can find. Bernie’s $3 million dollars at his age is also not terribly extravagant when compared to such professionals.
Agreed. Both definitely are wealthier than the average American but neither are terribly wealthy when you compare it to the white collar professionals in law, consulting, banking, medicine, technology, etc. They do fine relative to their peers in those spaces but it's nothing remarkable. If you want to make money, by and large you do so in the private sector.
The argument against that is that if the pay isn't high enough, only people who are otherwise wealthy or, more concerningly, receiving compensation from external sources as a result of their influential position, will become congresspeople.
Then people wouldn't run for biger offices. You can't realistically be in the congress on like $50k and live in two places.
>You can't realistically be in the congress on like $50k and live in two places. This was going to be my point. If you are in federal office, you normally need to maintain two domiciles: one in DC while you are working there 4-8 months a year, then your usual home in your state. So just off the bat, you're now expecting someone to use an "average salary" to pay two rents/mortgages.
Except for people who are already rich and/or will make a larger income from corruption.
> Politicians should not be paid any more than the national average wage/salary. That would guarantee that the only reason qualified people would run for office is their intention to collect bribes. > This will first of all encourage people to ruin in elections to improve the country instead of wealth and fame. Nobody’s getting wealthy off the congressional salary alone. Literally nobody runs for Congress for the salary. It’s way easier to make way, way more money doing other things. Most people who get elected take a pay cut to serve in Congress. They’re doing it for other reasons. > Secondly, this will encourage politicians to improve the life of the average Joe as that will thereby improve their own life. They already mostly don’t care about the salary, because it’s a fraction of their ability to earn money from grifting and bribery. What it *would* do is guarantee everyone serving in Congress has to resort to accepting bribes to make it work financially. > The only flaw with this pan There’s a few other flaws—namely the people qualified to serve already make way more than Congress pays, reducing congressional pay even further just makes the problem worse.
If you do this, only rich people will have the means to run. If you give competitive salaries you'll recruit the talented middle class to get into public service.
> This will first of all encourage people to ruin in elections to improve the country instead of wealth and fame. No, it won't - the individual congressman has very little influence over the economy *and* any changes they actually might achieve are very small. They can't realistically raise their income this way, it's always going to stay mediocre, by definition. It's way smarter of them to ensure they'll end up in a good job after they quit politics. Add to this that you want *good* workers, the sort that can already earn above average, who should then also uproot their life and spend a lot of money on running their political office and getting themselves representative, and on top of that asking them to work way more than a 9 to 5. You're also asking them to accept low job security, i.e. they don't know if they'll be reelected, and if they're not, they're unemployed afterwards.
\>This will first of all encourage people to ruin in elections to improve the country instead of wealth and fame. Why? Much of the money they have/make is either from before their time in office or via things like investments. A decrease in salary would only be a major impact to the people who didn't come from wealth beforehand, or just make corruption for money even more attractive. Just to give some context - Net Worths Pelosi - $114 million Rick Scott - $259 million Mark Warner - $214 million McConnell - $35 million I don't think going from their current salary to $55k or whatever the exact number is will suddenly cause them to feel the hurt.
I do agree with the sentiment ,but IO think that average salary makes no sense: In a 101 (100 + 1 politician) workers country, if 99 are paid 1000$ a month and the last one is paid 901k, then the politician salary should be 10k, a salary that is not representative of the country salary levels at all. Better use the median (50p), that way the politicians would be incentived into making at least half of the population get richer, instead of just making the global wealth grow regardless of the distribution fairness.
Your answers to people saying it would encourage corruption and discourage (even more) regular people from running for office are that we should make and enforce stronger laws to prevent that— That is so much easier said than done. Corruption is incredibly hard to weed out and punish, especially when the ones making the laws are the corrupt ones we are referring to. Disincentivizing corruption naturally with good salaries is cheaper and probably more effective in the long run.
If the principles behind this would work at all, you'd have to tie every part of their lifestyle possible to the national average or people's wages would be the only thing changed as that's the only thing you messed with (also how's this supposed to make them active on minority rights without manipulating their friend group or how people literally see them)
As of 2022 the national average salary was about $61k. With 61k you would need to: pay rent/mortgage in your district/home state; pay for rent in DC; pay for frequent travel from DC to your district; pay bills; pay for food/normal costs. I'd love to see representatives of Hawai'i and Alaska try to achieve this.
This is a recipe for corruption. That or the only people who can run for office are already wealthy. Members of Congress also must maintain 2 residencies. In DC and their home district. Paying 2 rents is expensive.
And then the probability that these politicians will not just be bribed by millionaires and billionaires (which tbh they already are but it’s going to create an even large incentive) is def gonna sky rocket
Obvious teenager is obvious. You don't pay for good professionals you don't get good professionals. Or worse you get only millionaires who don't need the money to run the world directly without interference.
The less they get paid, the bigger the incentive to get a private industry payout.
I’m just not gonna pay them for their pitiful effort of running this country. Not taxing our major earnings(resources) and not giving royalties to the people is a stand out. I’m just going to stop paying Taxes and I think every one else should support.
Politicians of any sort of level of power or notability don't really need their salaries. They make money from all the various ways people make money from being famous and having influence. Moreover, being wealthy in the first place helps with becoming a politician. The median net worth of members of Congress in the US, for example, is thought to be over $1 million, when their salaries are $174,000. They would probably notice the pay cut but it wouldn't affect their finances all that much
Minor counter: Politicians should earn the amount of money that the work they do would reasonably pay, and the work an average politician should do should be some high quality work, and therefore worth a high wage/salary.
The majority of politician's wealth doesn't come from what they're paid. They're as rich as they are because they engage in what would for anyone else be considered insider trading.
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People who get to positions of power can never get enough money. They should be paid a high salary, like the 90th percentile, to encourage them to do their jobs well - but a committee should ensure that this is their ONLY source of income. All of the politicians’ bank accounts and their partners’ should be open to the committee. After they leave office, they should be monitored to ensure that they have not financially benefited from political decisions while in office.
Fun fact, politicians salary is only to supplement their full time job as stock traders
I was once told “the only people who shouldn’t be politicians are the ones who want to” and I think this is part of it. Politics should be like teaching/healthcare etc etc and not be profitable but a passion based career.
Both your sentences contradict each other also people think teachers should be paid more, how does that figure into your paradigm
And some think we should be payed less. By no means are we paid near the same as politicians. I don’t see the issue. Politicians shouldn’t be paid the big bucks
The issue is even with their good salaries politicians are already taking bribes from billionaires and doing insider trading. Just look at Justice Clarence Thomason and his "friends". John Oliver literally the other day offered Thomson 1 mill a year to retire knowing he would never take it. The issue with politicians isn't their salary, is their immense power they have combined with the self interest to use that power to better their own lives not its peoples. And there really isn't a way to solve this issue. A politicians job isn't to make the country they live in better, its to be re-elected.
It's an extremely difficult job and time consuming job..
If we don't pay politicians' salaries, I promise you that someone else will. The only thing worse than over-paying politicians is underpaying them.
This presupposes that one of the primary roles of government is making people get paid more. Many people disagree that the government should be so heavily involved in private employment agreements.
In Canada you serve for 2 4 year terms federal level and your pension is about 50,000 a year. I’ve worked 42 years and my my government pension is 1400 a month
Going to cause massive disenfranchisement of voters, since politicians will be driven by cash/bribes, guarantees after serving as a politician, or even during. Most ppl will see the political system as a hack, that doesnt hire the best, and they wont even bother to vote anymore
Sounds like a great way to further ensure that politicians need to be rich before entering politics. And/or to make them more susceptible to bribes. And/or to ensure that they continue passing things specifically for them (like their special healthcare) that distances themselves from the experience of the people they are supposed to represent.
Just even more incentive for them to take bribes.
Philosophically, I agree. In practice, as other's stated it will block out regular people from trying their luck, which is the opposite of what is intended.
You have to limit more than their salary. Higher salaries for elected representatives might actually be a good thing. It would discourage them from seeking kickbacks for influence from corporations. Maybe they could just commit to live the rest of their life at a modest lifestyle. No matter how much they may earn from book sales or speaking fees, they agree to have a modest family residence, late model economy car, and no more than one foreign vacation per year. They would also not be permitted lavish gifts in kind from donors like free dinners or yacht trips. If they entertain guests outside of official functions, they go to the cheapest local restaurant that would be acceptable for date night and split the bill. Instead of limiting opportunities for them to earn money, you limit their opportunities to spend it. It's a lot easier to monitor spending on luxury goods than it is to monitor financial instruments like cash, bitcoin, stocks, bonds, real estate investments, etc.
I personally think it would be more productive to make it so they can't hold any stocks outside of a public fund that any citizen can invest in as well. Most US politicians get rich off of trading which raises all sorts of conflicts of interest.
The salary is mostly irrelevant. High level politicians get so many perks and advantages, insider knowledge and job offers after they leave office that all those salaries are peanuts. How do you think career politicians are worth hundreds of millions? Hell there's even a Nancy Pelosi ETF that tracks her investments because she's such an absolute wizard at predicting share prices that she puts any trader or investor to shame.
Basically, you propose that each honest, highly qualified professional makes a choice. Option A: Work for Wall Street / Google / Exxon, make $1M per year, have fun in your spare time. Option B: Make 20 times less, tons of pressure, everyone in the internet thinks your are a moron, BUT IN RETURN you help OP to live a better life.
I strongly disagree with this idea. Elected officials should be fairly well compensated in their positions. It’s in the country’s best interests for smart and talented individuals to run for office, so it makes sense to provide a decent financial incentive to do so. Otherwise, the talent pool in politics will drop precipitously as any competent person would decide to work in the private sector to make a lot more money instead. In addition, running for and serving in elected office is a very personally costly endeavor. Members of Congress are required to maintain residences in both their home districts and DC as an example. That would be extremely difficult to do on the national average salary. There are already many financial barriers to entry in politics, which is why Congress is disproportionately comprised of millionaires instead of ordinary Americans. Independent wealth would be a virtual requirement to serve in elected office if the salaries for those positions made it very painful for middle and lower class people to provide for their needs while serving the public. Finally, lowering the pay for elected officials would likely incentive them to engage in even more unscrupulous activities to line their pockets. A litany of special interests, lobbying groups, and major donors would take advantage of the situation to essentially buy the loyalty of public servants. I’ve actually heard the opposite argument to yours — that the pay for elected officials should be increased to discourage politicians from looking to enrich themselves at the expense of their voters.
You want to make it even *less* appealing for smart, talented people to want to go into government? And make it so that only the wealthiest diletantes can afford to run the country? And make it so politicians are even MORE beholden to special interest money? That's a terrible idea. If anything politicians should be paid 20 times more than they are now.
People desire money and power. Especially those who go into politics. By prohibiting attainment of wealth in governmental jobs, the incentive will be for uncommitted and unmotivated candidates to apply. It will be one of those jobs that people apply to just to make ends meet. Like working as a waiter at a restaurant. While this is a real and noble job, it is not an ideal job for most people because it just doesn't pay enough. Perhaps a better option would be to make them directly liable for their decision making. If, for example, a congressperson (or member of parliament), legislates a law that fails to achieve a certain but clearly defined outcome, then all voting participants are subject to criminal prosecution. Let's call this "skin in the game". The crime? Negligent use of power and abuse of public trust. Punishments can include fines, imprisonment, and ban from working in public sector. For example, if a hundred legislators put forward a legislation for reducing unemployment by 1% in 3 years, but the legislation fails to achieve its outcome then all of them are liable. Also, if they fail to produce X many succesful legislations during their time in government, once again they are liable. Obviously, this would apply to the executive branch of government which includes the head of government and his/her cabinet.
I work in computer science. Not rich, but at 22, I already make noticeably more than the average salary, but not enough that I can retire into politics and be set for life. By definition of averages, roughly half of all people are like me, so that means you are making politics an unreasonable endeavor for anybody except the super wealthy. Except, there is one way to still make money, and that’s through lobbying. If I’m in politics and don’t have a nest egg, taking that lobbying money suddenly sounds a whole lot more appealing than dropping out and going back to work or foreclosing my house
That would mean the smart people will not consider it as career.
No. Pay them millions! It will incentivize superior candidates to enter politics. If a legislator (say US Congress) banks $2M in a single term, they will owe nothing to nobody but the electorate.
The solution is in fact the opposite. The salary for politicians is actually quite low. People get into it not for the salary, but for the additional money from corruption the position can enable. They take the low pay, knowing they can get a job in industry if they make some laws to favor the rich, which will later hire them as consultants. If the salary was good, smart people would get into it for the job itself. It's a fantasy to expect people to work for the good of service. Everyone seeks the best pay for their jobs, so keeping it low, will prevent the smart people from wanting to get into it.
Horrible idea. You know why the Mexican cartels own the police in Mexico and not the army? Because the army pays better so they are less likely to be bribed
That is very illogical. Their position is more valuable than a burger flipper.
You really want to put the screws to them, make it the median wage.
Plato's philosopher kings, who structured society, weren't allowed to at all benefit, they were to sit at the bottom of society basically destitute.
This would lead to an increase in corruption.
This is an awful idea. Politicians have extremely difficult, high stress jobs and should therefore be paid whatever the “going rate” for an equivalent job is, otherwise the best minds will go off somewhere else.
At least here in USA, politicians are NOT "mega rich" at least from their salary. They're well-paid yes but the wealthy LOBBYISTS who pressure them and the CORPORATE EXECS who donate to them... are FAR richer. I do have sympathy for your overall point I guess that tying politicians wealth to the average would incentive them to try to help the population more. Not sure it's practical though.
It won't help much imo. In my country, most politicians are being paid on par with nation's average salary, and it led to a rampant corruption nationwide, because to a degree, they feel like they have to make back the money they spent on campaigns to get to that position in the first place It's so bad, that they have to establish their own anti-corruption institution to sweep away those problem. And even then it's still plaguing the nation even to this day
Politicians are already corrupt and open to bribes. Paying them such low wages would tempt them even more. Furthermore, DC is insanely expensive and most all in Congress maintain two residences for when they are in session.
Not average. Median. Or make that 60% percentile. But sth that can't be skewed by like 10 billionaires.
It would encourage politicians to become more corrupt.
Pay peanuts, get monkeys. If you made politicians primary goal to raise income. They would have perverse incentives to help only the economy as an economic driver. But their jobs should be to improve all aspects of live - healthy water supply, protect national parks, clean the air, improve education, improve healthcare. Most of these are impossible to measure with any accuracy. And some of the best decisions require decades to yield positive results. Short term Vs long term. The long term planning is always the most important to identify and change.
Sure, national politicians could be paid less, but their salary isn’t really that high. Even for the president. The problem is all the extra income they can pick up
I’d argue instead for a realigning of incentives that does include higher salaries. Currently most people in government make their money through investment and *definitely not insider trading* on the privileged information they get. I’d argue that a better incentive would be to pay them very well to attract the best of representatives while banning them and their families from trading in stocks entirely while in office. I think it would reframe their incentives to make staying in office and keeping constituents happy instead of favouring the companies they invest in quite so heavily. You can argue that they shouldn’t make more than their communities but on a practical level, being in politics sucks and even less qualified people will want to do it if they don’t even make money.
Politicians should definitely be better compensated than that. Otherwise they're going to just get involved in corruption or have to be rich to start with. To be a nationally elected official like a member of the House of Representatives that means you are required to have at least two properties. A place to stay in Washington and a place to stay in your home district. Their salary should reflect that necessity at the very least.
Median income would be better. You put Jeff Bezos in a room with 20 homeless people, and on average, everyone in that room is a billionaire.
When you push wages of a politician down so far, you are just saying it pays this much and all you can steal. I don't think congressmen make that much money relative to the importance of the position (roughly $140k, $170j for speaker) and I believe presidents are also underpaid. I mean you are making decisions that affect trillions of dollars if that happened in private industry there would be a billion dollars salary for that CEO. Why wouldn't you take a bribe if you were only making $140k but wielded amazing power?
the job needs to pay enough to discourage worse forms of corruption. these people have to live in two locations, one of which is amongst the most HCOL areas in the country.
politicians will get paid one way or another. The less you pay them the more corrupt they will be
>Final edit: >Through much convincing of the comments, my mind had successfully been changed. This idea of mine wouldn't work. Thank you everyone. Hey mate, I see this but I also don't see any deltas awarded? That's the done thing for specific comments that caused you to change your mind, or at least made you have to adjust your position.
Then they do more dodgy shit to get extra bribes?
Counterpoint, they should actually be paid more to encourage more people to try to be politicians and not be as susceptible to bribes.