It occurs to me that there are few, if any, people in the Congress or in the higher levels of the Executive Branch who are not independently wealthy. Without commenting about the effects of a person's socioeconomic status on that person's ideological alignment and possible conflicts of interest, there does seem to me to be something that can be done, in at least a small way, by the well-off public servants in the highest levels of the United States government.
Members of Congress receive well into six figures each, something starting at around $174,000 (this is simple pay, not the other nifty stuff that they get), and rising from there. The President receives $400,000 annually (again, in addition to other stuff), as provided by Public Law 106-58, Sec. 644. And other high-level members of the Executive Branch are compensated commensurately.
Assuming minimum pay for the 535 Members of Congress (100 Senators, 435 House Representatives, excluding delegates) and the stated pay for the President, each year they receive at least ($174,000 x 535) + 400,000 = $93,490,000.
Since the folks in Congress and the White House are pretty well-off already, since they obviously must believe in doing right by the nation, and since they are calling upon the people of the United States to make financial sacrifices, it seems that they could easily give their salaries back to the US.
Admittedly, the approximately $93.5 million that they collectively mimimally make is a small figure when set against the national budget or the national debt. But a lot of people would, I think, take them a lot more seriously and regard them with quite a bit more consideration did they do this.
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Your argument that legislators should give back their annual salaries has one flaw. It is based on a false assumption.
ReplyDeleteYou said "they [public servants] obviously must believe in doing right by the nation". I do not find this obvious nor true.
There is no evidence in support of the idea that Congressmen or women, Representatives nor any other public servants, as a whole, are out to 'do right by the nation'. What is obvious is that they're out to serve themselves and to assuage the desires of the groups that support them.
SPJ, aside from the very term "public servant" (which would tend to imply actually serving, thereby doing right), perhaps they do not. I do, however, seem to recall quite a bit of Congressional rhetoric to the tune of "We want what's right for America," even if I cannot seem to find any at the moment...
ReplyDeleteIt tends, again, as I recall, to come in campaign promises. And those get broken with alarming regularity, partly because many of them are made regarding things that the sought office does not control.
I was trying to be subtly sarcastic (despite knowing that that does not often work well online, particularly without smilies). In the main, I agree with your assertion that the supposed "public servants" are "out to serve themselves and to assuage the desires of the groups that support them." This is hardly surprising, given that most of humanity is and has been in much the same mindset; we tend to take care of ourselves and those in positions and predisposed to do good things for us before we look to taking care of other people.
I am minded of some emails I have received from family members in the past. You may have gotten them, too; they're the ones that talk about how there should be Congressional term limits "because the Founding Fathers didn't think we ought to have career politicians." While I do not agree that the intentions of the Founding Fathers ought to be the guideline for what we ought to do (as I explain here: http://sites.google.com/site/folgha/home/updates/201002180941), I do find it interesting that such emails do not call for compensation limits for those in office, as well.
Leaving aside the issue, though, of whether or not public servants are actually out to serve the public, I do still think that it would be a powerful motion (and, cynically, an excellent PR tactic) for the highest-ranking elected officials to turn their paychecks back over to the country.