Exactly. They should be able to live comfortably, so that they don't have to take bribes to survive. But wealth inequality in the US is so large that we can't p

Exactly. They should be able to live comfortably, so that they don't have to take bribes to survive. But wealth inequality in the US is so large that we can't pay them enough so they won't feel like they have to keep up with the joneses. If we made the salary, say, $10m/year we'd get the problem of totally unqualified loons pursuing the job and doing anything to keep it just because they wanted the money. So I think N times the median where N is between 1 and 10 is about the best we can do.