No salary, they should be paid hourly at leas than minimum since most of their income is from gratuities.
this post was submitted on 07 Sep 2026
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That would further incentivize their corruption
Thry should get a massive salary but be strictly banned from all other forms of income.
I disagree. Everyone believes that people are greedy and their only goal in life is money hoarding. But if you ask them what their own goals are, getting filthy rich has very, very low priority.
If politicians are greedy, that's because 1) to become a politician (in the USA), you already have to be rich, and 2) if politicians are paid lots of money, greedy people want to become politicians.
You don't want to attract greedy assholes to represent you, but that's exactly what you're doing if you pay them too much. The people you do want to be politicians are those who aren't interested in money.
Politicians aren't paid lots of money, at least not by the government.
They have legitimate travel expenses and need a place to stay while in session and DC is not cheap. $60k would simply make the temptation to take money greater. You dont want your represetative broke and struggling. Their current pay being too high in not a problem because its not. Their ability to trade with insider knowledge and be corrupted by lobbyists and billionaires is.
$300/month with a $1,000 deductible
Where are you getting health insurance from? For that price my deductible is closer to $5,000!
I get the idea behind it, but this very much would backfire in that only the rich could become representation. Remember they made it a rule that they aren't allowed to sleep in their office while in D.C., and 60k not only won't afford a place in D.C, it most definitely won't allow for someone to have a home near their constituents AND D.C.
So we would end up with just having first or second sons of oligarchs, 1 trained to run the companies, the other trained to represent their families best interests.
Or, and hear me out in this one, if the average is not sustainable they would need to raise the average or lower costs until a balance was reached. By forcing them to play by the very rules that are writing, there is an incentive to make them fair.
While this may not be there exact way too achieve that, the goal is still a good one to work towards.
And how is that supposed to work ? You can't fix the healthcare care system or economy in a day, so non wealthy people would still struggle to live as politicians whilst those changes are being worked on, meaning there's little motivation for them to join politics, and independently wealthy people who are just in it for the power wouldn't give a fuck about being badly paid. Look at Trump. He doesn't even take a salary, because he's corrupt and wealthy enough to not need it, so his salary being low would matter fuck all to him and other corrupt pieces of crap like him.
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While this sounds good on the surface, the problem is that requiring legislators to live with the same financial difficulties most of us face would lead to sharp increases in direct bribery and overt corruption. As bad as it is anyway that effectively unlimited campaign/PAC contributions can be used to corrupt them, if their personal finances were significantly more trying, it would be much worse, especially given that most legislators have more personal expenses than the average person, including maintaining resdences in both DC and their home state/district. The much better (but also much, much more difficult) solution would be to raise the incomes of most Americans rather than to reduce the income of the legislators.
yeah i was a hell of a lot more sympathetic to that totally unverified supposition (not argument) when i didn't believe there was rampant corruption in every branch of local state and federal government. it's like those pictures of "LOOK WHAT COMMUNISM WOULD GET YOU" and it's just pictures of homelessness under capitalism.
solution would be to raise the incomes of most Americans rather than to reduce the income of the legislators.
yeah that's the point. if these chucklefucks kicking back on open corruption were forced (forced) to live on the average american salary they'd be more apt to fix the bullshit holding wages down. that's my unverified supposition though. actually, now i've come to think of it, the fact that our government is subject to corruption despite their high compensation (supposedly) buoying up fragile moralities seems to be evidence against your initial supposition. Let's try the other way.
Lmao they have all ways been taking bribes. Lobbying is legalized bribery…
"Maintaining residences in both DC and their home state/district" I've got that solved: We build a dorm facility in Washington and require them to stay there.
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I agree on spirit, but in practice this will just make them even easier to be bought.
As if they aren't already bought. At least you'll have one of your own elevated and not some already rich asshole trying to get richer.
I didn't say they aren't already, just that it would be even easier if they're paid less.
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They weren't ever supposed to represent you, they represent rich white men like they were intended. It's literally designed to favor the rich because literally every single one of the signers of the bill of rights was a wealthy dude, to a man they were middle - upper class and in general criminals at that.
I think the government should switch to a random lottery. Every term a random person is selected from all available and eligible citizens. It would be our civic duty, put your regular job on hold for a few years and do your part.
Most would hate it, but that’s kinda the point. If we all had to eat our own dogfood, we’d eventually start making it taste better.
I've said this for years. Live in dorms. Cafeteria food. Minimum wage. All assets put into trust and in a vanilla total market fund for 5-10 years after service. It should be like jury duty. I've not met a single person who disagrees with this system.
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The idea behind a high salary for representatives is that they don't need to take on extra money from lobbyists to survive. Keep the salaries, but make bribery illegal again and things will get better. Make the salaries low AND get the money out of politics and you'll only get rich people becoming politicians. Oh and term limits should be a thing.
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I guess the idea of paying them well is that they can't be bought with bribes. Then again, when has any wealthy person ever been satisfied.
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How about this:
We pay politicians in "X times the minimum wage"; for the sake of this example I'll say 30x the minimum wage (too much? Too little? I don't know, that's not important rn)
The thing is, they can't change this number, at all. The only way they can increase their salaries is to increase the minimum wage.
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I'm sorry who the fuck has a $1000 deductible??? We have decent insurance for the US and the deductible is $7500 each (family plan thru employment)...
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300 a month and a thousand dollar deductible?!?!
where the fuck is that deal, it’s like 8k deductible and 600 a month
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pretty sure most of them are millionaires, because the billionaire donors are giving them money, in other forms. even with those restrictions, they get millions from the billionaires in thier pockets. Thats why Dinos are fighting just as hard to keep that way.
Also politicians wouldn't exactly be less corruptible if they were poorer.
i think it makes them more susceptible to it, because they need money, and will do anything for it. mtg and boeboe were poor by congress standard, after less than 2 years they became millionaires overnight. Mitch in the 2010s, was only 3-ish millions and increased his wealth 10times in less than 10years.
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Remember it's not just the Republicans both sides of the aisle got their pockets loaded with bribe money to not change any of the laws. You get Jeffries on national TV crying about the usual Democratic talking points having everyone shake their head and saying not this shit again. Clearly he does not give a fuck about the $40,000 to $80,000 crowd they can eat cake. He wants to help the poor and there's nothing wrong with that but the main priority is helping everybody but don't forget the middle ground which they always do.
70? They shouldnt be electable after 60!
Make it 70, but they have to live off the same pensions as everyone else after 60 years old.
And they have to work 40 hours a week every week, or they get no benefits... just..like..us.
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Pay them 5 million per year for all I care so long as they actually represent the people and not private interest groups, are not currupt, and are some of the best people for the job. And that would be an incredibility good deal.
People can be wealthy and not totally out of touch if they make an effort to listen to people
Well then that’s not capitalism.
Tbh idk why people think capitalism is a good thing. It’s just feudalism with corporations.
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In the history books when they discuss the hundreds or thousands of small cuts that eventually killed America, Mike Johnson may very well be one of the most prominent captioned photos.
I thought after citizens united they represent corporations not us
Salary will have unintended consequences.
Why would anyone choose that job unless they were already very wealthy?
People who want to enact change. You can find plenty of those they just don't have any visibility because money.
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