- cross-posted to:
- politicalmemes@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- politicalmemes@lemmy.world
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Better yet, bring back the ancient Greek lottery for state office.
If members of Congress earn the average or median wage, that will ensure that only the rich can actually hold that position. Very, very few non-rich people would take that risk.
And it will only encourage lobbying, insider trader, and every other corrupt money making bullshit they still do with what they earn.
I agree with an earlier retirement, but I’m conflicted about the regular wage part.
If gov members work for a “regular” wage, then what would be their incentive in public service vs other jobs. Or what’s stopping them from working a regular wage and then side hustle as the billionaires’ lap dog (not that different now tbh). Good will?
And a wealth cap. If you have 20 million networth but want to give it all up save under 200k (current median networth) to be a public servant then by all means. They made Jimmy Carter give up his peanut farm, which was the right thing, we should do the same for politicians today.
tell that to the silent generation and boomers in congress, mitch, chuck greasley, chuck schumer,etc.
Mitch might show no interest at all in this matter.
MEDIAN wage. No rich to skew things.
And no money from lobbyists, no insider trading and no ability to award contracts to private entities
Might be unpopular be politicians should actually be paid a lot. You want to attract actually skilled and capable people after all
But it should also be there only source of income, no speaking gigs, no stock trades, no side business
I think it is much more important what they are using that skill for.
It’s also actually a means to prevent corruption unfortunately. Less likely to take ridiculous sums if you’re financially solid
One of the reasons a lot of government positions track if you have debts is that propensity to financial burdens make politicians more suceptible to corruption.
If you pay them less, they are actually going to be more easily bribed.
If you pay them less, they are actually going to be more easily bribed.
If you keep the same people in office, then yeah. I wonder who else would be up for the job if the pay was lower. Hopefully more Mamdanis.
Nah, it’ll be independently wealthy trust fund kids that don’t need to rely on a paycheck to pay rent, but have a trust that is valued based on policy.
Politicians should be some of the highest paid people in the country. I wouldn’t get out of bed for 70k today, that was my paycheck for my first professional job. Now perhaps you don’t want me as a politician, but…
Live in Missouri. Our state legislature liked to for years vote down a pay raise for themselves. They made sure to stand up and wave “Look at how good we’re doing.”
If I wanted to run for legislature, I would have had to taken a cut in pay and I am definitely not on the top 50% of the state, much less the country.
I’d agree with you except we see politicians selling out for even tiny amounts while having tens of millions in the bank. If you’re willing to sell the food out of the mouths of the poor for $2,500 and you’ve got 12 mil in the bank your inherently corrupt and having a big paycheck won’t change that. They have billionaire brain rot, number go up syndrome, as long as number goes up that’s all that matters no matter how much they are given or have.
These people are massively advantaged with the current campaign system/rules.
No. You see the tiny tip of the iceberg in payments. There is always a ton more beneath the surface.
My thoughts on that was they got paid the average pay for the state the live in. Down here in the south they would have to get food stamps.
Add more term limits. You serve two terms and you’re out, no exceptions. I’ll even lend you a Mexican saying: “Sufragio efectivo no reelección”
Michigan has term limits. It has not worked out well. It makes lobbying way easier, since the lawmakers aren’t very effective earlier in their career. You also wind up with two casts of politians: those who want to be public servants and are forced to run for a different office to keep good on the table and those who are already well heeled. We don’t need the second category in politics.
I looked up Michigan’s term limits which is 12 years, which is honestly very long, so it led me to searching about corruption correlations and here’s what I found:
- The penultimate effect of term limits increases corruption frequency by about 28 %.
- The magnitude effect, stemming from shorter tenures, reduces the average cost of corruption.
- Stricter term limits are associated with lower overall corruption.
- Term limits thus serve as an institutional safeguard against political corruption.
It is well established that lame-duck incumbents tend to be less accountable (Besley and Case, 1995, 2003), hence more prone to corruption, and Tsur (2022) showed that penultimate terms reinforce this effect. […] Corrupt activities typically require close and trusted relationships between the public officials involved in the malfeasance and the private actors offering bribes. This intimacy and trust do not develop overnight, but require time to cultivate. […] Consequently, such corrupt networks are often built gradually through repeated interactions, shared secrets, and a history of successful illicit transactions.
You’d end up with politicians just jumping around tho.
Would be fine with them earning a multiple of minimum wage so when they raise their salary they raise the minimum.
Alternatively: tie the minimum wage to inflation. Some US states do this.
I have always heard people make this argument, and since it’s Great British Bake-off time, I’ll use it as the example.
There’s no prize, and the pay per episode is fairly minimal. Less than $500/episode for contestants. Plus, they get ~$2000 stipend for ingredients. On the fly converting pounds to dollars, so these are guesstimates.
What that means is that Great British Bake-off does not find the best home baker in Britain, it finds the best baker who can afford to take time off to be on the show. If you can afford to miss school, work, or being a parent for 12 weeks, you can’t compete.
Same applies here.
If you can’t afford to live on the salary, you’ll only get people in office who don’t need the salary. We already get that to some extent with campaigning costs. This could make it worse. The barrier of entry is higher.
Instead, we need a performance review with real consequences other than “Guess I don’t get re-elected, but I still get a book deal.”
I have always thought it should be twice the average median income of the state they represent.
But you bring up much larger issues. There are so many bars to running for office that make it so much easier for capital holders. I say people who hold capital should be barred from public office. I will leave the exact definition of “holding capital” up to the reader.
Nah. They rich because they’re ultra smart. How else do they consistently beat the S&P500? /s
I would be okay with their salary being 5 times the federal minimum wage. They want a raise? They must raise the minimum wage.
It should be treated like jury duty. Every year a new politician in every single seat of government. It will be absolutely perfect! Nothing could go wrong.
