Georgia Repub. complains: ‘I’m stuck here making $172,000 a year’

Politicians salaries pale in comparison to the money they make off corporations and lobbyist that pay them in closed door meetings to push their agenda. I have always believed anyone in an elected position should only be allowed to make the money the position pays. If they show an increase in net worth while in office outside their salary they should be arrested and that corrupt money returned to the tax payers coffers.

I happen to agree with the congressman. It's not because I would feel good about paying them more money for the job they're doing, but because if we don't pay them the income they seek, they'll take it from corporations in bribes.

Essentially, if we pay them more, then corporations have less lobbying power which is a positive thing for us.

reply to post by westo


His comment is accurate. Sad, but accurate.

That is why these emails going around limiting Congressional benefits are missing the point. These slugs do not care about the salary or the benefits. It's small potatoes to them. Their 'service' is nothing more than their foot in the door for greater wealth down the road. Even if we cut salaries to $0, they would still do it because the turn-around on the time invested is so profitable.

Now if we made it illegal to transition from the government to lobbying firms, then we might get somewhere. Of course that would require a law written by Congress. Oh, wait a minute....

reply to post by Aazadan


Not a bad idea on the surface but how much do you suggest?

I disagree we should pay them more. Greed knows no bounds. If we paid them a $1,000,000/year, it would not stop them looking for more elsewhere. It would not stop money influencing the system. Instead of $172,000/year plus ill-gotten gains, now they have $1,000,000/year plus ill gotten gains.

No way, not on my dime.

reply to post by Aazadan


What, you think that if we pay them more they'll stop taking bribes, gifts, or whatever you want to call their K-Street paychecks? That's pretty naïve. These people have bathed themselves in an environment of their creation that is founded entirely upon privilege and a pervasive sense of entitlement. In the infamous words of Richard Nixon, 'If the President does it, it's not illegal'. That's how these parasites think. Remember the Romney tape? It's all take, take, take. They don't even think they're the same species as the rest of us.

Every job in this country should make a decent wage. Stop being so damn selfish.

Aazadan
I happen to agree with the congressman. It's not because I would feel good about paying them more money for the job they're doing, but because if we don't pay them the income they seek, they'll take it from corporations in bribes.

Essentially, if we pay them more, then corporations have less lobbying power which is a positive thing for us.

You could pay these people 500K a year and they will still take bribes. Remember insider trading which is illegal for the people is legal for members of congress.

As the old saying goes you don't go to DC to make laws you go to DC to make money.

reply to post by defuntion

(Insert puke symbol here..... whatever that looks like these days...)

It looks like this..

(which is more like a death symbol imo)

Anyway this is SICK and I'm tired of these scum. Not much more to say, really!

beezzer
Politicians should make no money what-so-ever.

They are public "servants".

I'm pretty much disgusted by each and every one of them.

That's too uncharitable, let's pay 'em the amount the agreed is the minimum that a worker can be paid. They we'll see how quickly minimum wage is raised!

Derek

Perhaps congressmen should be paid the average salary in the district they serve.

reply to post by westo


I second that! If this representative doesn't like his salary, ask him why are there so many career politicians? Maybe if these self serving A$$holes would be paid the average salary in their district, they would fight more for the common worker instead of their corporate campaign contributors and lobbyists. There would also be a lot less politicians who are well over the retirement age still walking the halls of the congress and senate. The money, benefits and power is good, they're not sticking around for nothing. John McCain is a typical example.

ABNARTY
reply to post by Aazadan

 

Not a bad idea on the surface but how much do you suggest?

I disagree we should pay them more. Greed knows no bounds. If we paid them a $1,000,000/year, it would not stop them looking for more elsewhere. It would not stop money influencing the system. Instead of $172,000/year plus ill-gotten gains, now they have $1,000,000/year plus ill gotten gains.

No way, not on my dime.

I would suggest millions per year, with some strings attached. I wrote a thread on it a few weeks ago here but it wasn't very popular. My initial recommendation (though any final numbers could obviously be tweaked) would be 8 million per year tax free, and with living expenses paid. Essentially that would just become pocket money. The goal would be to encourage congressmen to use their insider trading connections to significantly grow their earnings. Rather than earning 8 million per year, after investments they could be walking away with 10 million or so.

At this point you probably think I'm absolutely insane, and you're right but sometimes insane ideas are needed. The trick though would be that we institute wealth caps on members of congress. If the personal wealth of a congressperson and their immediate family surpassed a certain threshold they got nothing. This threshold could be set to X years in congress. For example if we wanted them gone after 12 years (2 senate terms) we would set their wealth cap to 120 million dollars. Anything they earned that put individual wealth above this amount would simply be taken away. Furthermore, this cap would apply to them for the next say... 20 years after they're out of congress meaning if they wanted to take a high ranking lobbying job after their term is up, they would be working for free. There would of course need to be extremely strict punishments in place for going above the wealth cap, including but not limited to someone losing ALL of their assets if they go above it.

The reason I favor a system like this, is that congress is in charge of writing the laws that restrict congress. As a result, they will never vote for legislation that negatively impacts them. It's simply against human nature. So in order to get rid of the lobbying influence we can just give them a very good deal. If you're interested in how much this would cost you on your taxes it would come to $10.35 annually (if spread among the population evenly). An amount you would easily get back through improved legislation. Contrary, in order for corporations to buy a politician off to the same degree that they can now, they would need to spend for example 46 million per senator every 6 years opposed to 300,000 per senator every 12 years. They would simply be priced out of the game. To me that is worth an extra $10 in taxes per year.

jtma508
What, you think that if we pay them more they'll stop taking bribes, gifts, or whatever you want to call their K-Street paychecks? That's pretty naïve.

Like I said above, I'm in favor of wealth caps. Give them a very high wealth cap and then pay them so that after 10-12 years of service they hit that cap (and would then be working for free). It literally stops bribes and gifts unless they're 1 termers, in which case bribes are prohibitively expensive (and of reduced effectiveness when they can't bribe 51% for a majority vote). The wealth cap combined with their personal income make them totally pointless. Because congressmen would serve shorter terms it also makes lobbying and buying people off considerably more expensive.

buster2010
You could pay these people 500K a year and they will still take bribes. Remember insider trading which is illegal for the people is legal for members of congress.

As the old saying goes you don't go to DC to make laws you go to DC to make money.

edit on 19-9-2013 by buster2010 because: (no reason given)

Of course, that's because 500k a year is nothing compared to what they make through insider trading and bribes. If you want to price the corporations out of lobbying, you have to think bigger.

reply to post by westo


ive had the same idea.

elected officials should be paid the median wage of the people they represent.

for example, the mayor of new york city should be paid the median income of new yorkers. quite a bit i imagine. the gov of new york state, the median income of the state.

however, on the fed level, since they represent the people of the u.s., gets paid the median of the country.

whats weird about this is that a gov of say california could make much more than the senator from that state.

this way, if an elected official wants a raise, they would have to raise the median wage of their constituents.

I think politicians should be paid similar to the military. A freshman congressman would make the same as an Ensign. Or go back to the "sessions" of congress and pay for their airfare and lodging during the sessions, otherwise, they have normal jobs.

The problem with those ideas is that while they feel fair, you're talking about a position with a high degree of power. Lots of power+low wages ultimately leads to massive corruption.

Wookiep
reply to post by defuntion

 

(Insert puke symbol here..... whatever that looks like these days...)

It looks like this..

(which is more like a death symbol imo)

Anyway this is SICK and I'm tired of these scum. Not much more to say, really!

Thank you very much Wookiep. You are now my friend until this board is shut down by some other bought and sold pukes.

reply to post by Aazadan



As crazy as your idea sounds... I do see some merit in it, but who is going to watch their accounts and aliases and families accounts and offshore accounts to make sure that they are following the letter of the law?
How are we going to be sure they are still making laws in the best interest of the American people?
It is too bad that greed rules the majority of our politicians... how much money is enough? It seems that they are afflicted with an illness.. that illness is greed, either that or they are too stupid or vain to listen to their constituents. This 33 year old guy who is complaining about $172,000 per year not being enough should have his wages cut by 2/3 and then maybe he can complain. I think it is the vain, shallow egotistical dumbasses who hold no true value of life, liberty and happiness who are truly running this country... it is too bad that most of them have never had to live on the cheap, or live paycheck to paycheck... money does not make people happy... usually it just makes them greedy empty shells who will stomp on everyones head to grab the benjamins falling from the sky. Who knows... maybe this guy lives in a gun free zone and we wont have to hear his whining much longer.

reply to post by westo


Right, but instead of the average pay it should be the mean (I think that is the right term) where you earn what most people earn, like if most people earn $9 an hour then that is what you get, instead average which takes into account the few extremely wealthy and divides that into the poor.

The problem is Career Politicians and the system of Bribery we live in. Traditionally, you run for public office, serve the people that elected you, then once your term is over you go back to whatever you were doing before because your job is now done.

Remember the Supreme Court ruling; Corporations have the same rights as people, and money is free speech? This was the death of America's democratic system IMO. You now have revolving door career "politicians" that get undisclosed amounts of money and serve in multiple positions of government while also holding positions or serving as "consultants" for corporations and lobbyist groups.

Very few people make it to Washington on an honest buck, and the public is just now seeing how blatantly obvious it's become.

reply to post by westo


I've said it for a while now, Politicians should only be making a little bit more than their average constituent...if that

reply to post by westo


Reading just the first page of comments made me think - this is an issue that the vast majority of conservatives and liberals can agree on, and yet with all the power we're supposed to have in this country, we can't change it.

Our republic may not be dead yet, but it's in a deep, deep coma, caused by division of the masses. I think these people in Washington are much smarter than we give them credit for, and not in a good way.