cross-posted from: https://lemmy.today/post/61249435
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- 4 days
I’ve been thinking about it, and I actually think legislators are underpaid. I think they should get a million dollars a year while in office, plus a very generous pension starting when they’re no longer in office, plus full healthcare for life for them and their family. I want them to be extremely well compensated so they can focus on their extremely important work.
The catch is that they must divest themselves from everything when they enter office (fully, they can’t just put it in a trust), and they’re considered a public servant from that point until they die. They can’t go work a “regular” job again, they can’t own a business, they can’t go do consulting after they leave. Any money from book deals or speaking engagements goes to the U.S. Treasury. Any “favors in kind”/“you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” deals are considered to be a form of payment, as is conducting business through a family member or associate. They are allowed to work in governmental positions, to volunteer, or to do other work for the public good but not for any additional compensation.
If they break the rules, they must repay every penny ever paid to them, with interest. This debt can’t be discharged with bankruptcy, and passes to family members upon the death of the legislator if it can be shown that they were aware of the rules being broken and didn’t report it.
50% of the repayment goes to a whistleblower as a reward for their honesty, so there’s an extremely strong incentive for everyone around them to closely watch everything they’re doing to make sure they’re not skirting the rules.
Basically, pay them enough that they have no rational need for corruption, and then an extremely punitive penalty to try to ensure their incentives remain aligned in the correct direction. It certainly wouldn’t solve everything, but I think it’d at least be better than what we have now. And if we capped their wage at the federal minimum, they’d either increase it to a point where they’re getting what they get now (causing severe inflation), only rich people could ever have a hope of being a legislator, or we’d get even more corruption.
- Shayeta@feddit.orgEnglish4 days
All the stipulations you added, but still median pay. And harsher punishments.
- ltxrtquq@lemmy.mlEnglish4 days
If you don’t pay the legislators well, the only people that would be able to afford to take the job are the already-wealthy.
- 3 days
Why? I wouldn’t mind a median wage for the rest of my life in exchange for thinking about how to make people’s lives better
- ltxrtquq@lemmy.mlEnglish3 days
Because you also need to spend time and money trying to get elected, and that isn’t quick or cheap. And then if you lose the election, then you’ve just gambled months of your time and however much money you spent on the campaign and lost it all.
So I guess it isn’t realistic for someone living paycheck to paycheck to run for office either way, but they definitely wouldn’t try if the job barely helped their financial situation.
I’ll take it a step further. They can have the federal minimum wage and all that entails. If the lowest american can live on $7.25 an hour with no other benefits then so can the leaders.
And before someone says it, annual audits on every one of them. If they find a buck on the ground and spend it without reporting, it’s jail. They wanna put us in a panopticon, they can join us.
- 4 days
There’s always a way for the wealthy elite to get around an audit if they’re able to pay off the auditors.
That’s the beauty of the surveillance state they want, it looks at them too. Don’t even need to destroy the world with data centers to automate a system that monitors every government employee as a financial inquisition.
If you want to be in charge, you forfeit your privacy.
- 3 days
We already know who buys our politicians, at least in the US, but they don’t see any consewuences for their actions in that corruption because the system itself is broken, and it’s by design.
Lmao if we’re going hxc mode. They work like 40 hours a year, not a week. So let’s knock that down to 14c.
While we’re at it, there’s 350m of us. These shouldn’t be ideas or requests.
- 4 days
See, the diets need to be high so they don’t need to accept bribes to get by! Well, they accept them anyway, and there’s still a major flaw in that argument …
- 4 days
Tell me you only want multi-millionaires being congresspeople without TELLING me you only want rich fucks leading the country.
- 4 days
That will only hurt the ones who aren’t corrupt. The corrupted ones get their money through other means.
- 3 days
You’re forgetting about all the surveillance they want on us, we should monitor their every move!
Following the noble Texas statehouse tradition of only millionaires with passive income being able to afford holding office.
We should at least pay the median lawyer salary, as these are the law people. The idea that trained professionals should be paid more is not heresy.
Yeah then i can corrupt them with just 2k dollars and it becomes a way worse situation
Yep yep, seems a genius idea
- 4 days
lol this guy thinking they make most of their money from their salary
how about the median wage? that incentivizes combatting inequality
- “write” a book
- Have a billionaire backed super PAC buy million copies “to give out to supporters during campaign”
- profit
They don’t need salaries.
- 4 days
I think the person who suggested this doesn’t realize a Congressperson’s salary is a tipped wage.
- EmptyAsparagus@piefed.socialEnglish4 days
some extreme Democratic views you have there, the current admin doesnt really like that. careful you dont get iced
