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No. Hell no. Elected office is a sacrifice and a duty. It is not a way to make a living. Thats how you end up with dinosaurs working those halls for 68 years

No. Hell no. Elected office is a sacrifice and a duty. It is not a way to make a living. Thats how you end up with dinosaurs working those halls for 68 years. I have a better idea. 1)Fix salary at 2x poverty wage. 2) make house members 1:50,000 representation to their county (yes that means the house would explode to 8000 elected officials) 3) tax any earnings above their pre-office historical income avg, at say 98%. No ones lives off the taxpayer and no ones lives off favors given. If they want to serve. They serve. The country would be far better off if congress shut down because they have DAY jobs to perform to keep their families fed. If they cant make ends meet with their basic salary, they dont know sacrifice. If they dont know sacrifice shouldn't be running for office. Stop paying for busy bodies and start electing hardworking, everyday americans

atlasunshrugged 5y ago
If you're going to this extreme why not keep the system as is with the only change being that we no longer have elected officials but rather citizens of voting age chosen at random in much the same way a jury is selected to serve for a term? No competitions, no prestige, just a duty that people are randomly asked to do to serve their countries.
- IG_Semmelweiss 5y ago
  That sounds great but what natural random number generator will you use? You can appreciate that jurt selection mostly works becayse the vast majoritt of events for which you are selecting is truly unimportant and thus with no value. When you are making a selection that in fact provides well paid jobs, arent you making the selection process a highly sought target for criminals and thieves seeking power?
vineyardmike 5y ago
> If they cant make ends meet with their basic salary, they dont know sacrifice. If they dont know sacrifice shouldn't be running for office. This is how you get bad candidates. > If they dont know sacrifice shouldn't be running for office. The poster might like AOC then. But something tells me they're not a supporter. > Stop paying for busy bodies and start electing hardworking, everyday americans TBH not sure i trust the "everyday american" to make really big complex decisions for a job. People who are familiar with such decision making process make a lot more and may not be "hardworking, everyday americans" to this poster.
- IG_Semmelweiss 5y ago
  What are these complex decisions? Are politicians hired to debug code? To send rockets to the moon? To discover innovative ways to create profit? No. Politicians only have 1 job. Protect the minority from the mob. To ensure neutral refereeing between consensual adults. Thats it. Its not rocket science. In fact i venture that the avg rocket scientist would do a far worse job than your avg joe. Avg joe understands the limits of his intellect and has a healthy respect for the wisdom of crowds. The avg scientist has gone thru life being told how great they are, and now they think they know better than you and me. Kissinger, McNamara, Wolfowitz, Fauci et al believe their hubris to be true and have caused major damage with their decisions.
  - vineyardmike 5y ago
    There are tough decisions. Laws are long and complex, and can have huge second order affects that need to be thought out. > Politicians only have 1 job. Protect the minority from the mob. > has a healthy respect for the wisdom of crowds. But is a politicians job to listen to the wisdom of the crowds? > The avg scientist has gone thru life being told how great they are, and now they think they know better than you and me. I sure trust a scientist more on their area of expertise more than I trust my own knowledge. I think people who rise to the top of their field generally believe their own hubris, not just scientists. Doctors think they can do anything, because becoming a doctor is so hard and well rewarded, engineers think they can solve anything because an engineers job is to solve (a specific subdomain of) things. Whenever an engineer tells me an issue is simple and they have the answer, if it's not their field, then they don't. This doubly applies to comments on HN, which have already solved economics, politics, and healthcare, just to name a few.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Supermancho 5y ago
  > This is how you get bad candidates. As per the known representative systems, there are countless ways to end up with bad candidates. I don't find this simplistic answer compelling. Notably, Plato (ie The Republic) suggested a relatively pious existence, to combat corruption.
prewett 5y ago
That's a great way to get corruption. Relying on independently wealthy people to sacrificially serve their country is not a reliable way of getting good quality talent. My father spent some time in Bolivia some decades ago, and people in government were paid practically nothing. So there were a lot of bribes expected. And government officials got a fantastic exchange rate on Bolivios -> USD, which after you go through the cycle a few times, ended up with the government transferring the rate subsidy to the official. China also doesn't pay its government officials much, and similarly, there is lots of corruption, which Xi Jinping spent several years cracking down on. At the very least, it will be independently wealthy people (aka "elites") running the country, which brings its own set of problems.
- mohanmcgeek 5y ago
  GP's idea is extreme but Salary has nothing to go with corruption. Politicians take money not to enrich their lifestyle, but to spend on getting elected/re-elected
- IG_Semmelweiss 5y ago
  Good quality talent? Who are these people you are referring to as talented? Do you mean talent to lie cheat and steal to the top? Kind of like a CEO? We dont want talented people. Those belong in private industry where the metric for benefit of society is measured in hard currency. We need people NOT talented in government so that the government does what its supposed to, and nothing else
simonebrunozzi 5y ago
Go ahead, be first. I'll wait.
creato 5y ago
Pay peanuts, get monkeys.
sethd 5y ago
> make house members 1:50,000 representation to their county (yes that means the house would explode to 8000 elected officials) I disagree with rest, but something along these lines does seem like a good solution.
- kej 5y ago
  As a random bit of trivia, the original proposal was for a 1:40,000 representative ratio, and the only opinion George Washington expressed the entire time he chaired the Constitutional Convention was to change the ratio to 1:30,000.
imtringued 5y ago
Why sacrifice yourself before your political career ended? Why not do it afterwards with extremely high capital gains and income taxes (100% tax for anything above $200k) for retired politicians?
- IG_Semmelweiss 5y ago
  I think i was misunderstood. What you are stating is the same I advocate. (Done with govt, ok cap hits you now) This works well because elected oficials have reporting requirments which means any high income during office is subject to optics and actual regulatory disclosure. Plus, I'm taking for granted that term limits would be put in place first. We need to get rid of the speech circuit retirement.

atlasunshrugged 5y ago

If you're going to this extreme why not keep the system as is with the only change being that we no longer have elected officials but rather citizens of voting age chosen at random in much the same way a jury is selected to serve for a term? No competitions, no prestige, just a duty that people are randomly asked to do to serve their countries.

IG_Semmelweiss 5y ago
That sounds great but what natural random number generator will you use? You can appreciate that jurt selection mostly works becayse the vast majoritt of events for which you are selecting is truly unimportant and thus with no value. When you are making a selection that in fact provides well paid jobs, arent you making the selection process a highly sought target for criminals and thieves seeking power?

vineyardmike 5y ago

> If they cant make ends meet with their basic salary, they dont know sacrifice. If they dont know sacrifice shouldn't be running for office. This is how you get bad candidates. > If they dont know sacrifice shouldn't be running for office. The poster might like AOC then. But something tells me they're not a supporter. > Stop paying for busy bodies and start electing hardworking, everyday americans TBH not sure i trust the "everyday american" to make really big complex decisions for a job. People who are familiar with such decision making process make a lot more and may not be "hardworking, everyday americans" to this poster.

IG_Semmelweiss 5y ago
What are these complex decisions? Are politicians hired to debug code? To send rockets to the moon? To discover innovative ways to create profit? No. Politicians only have 1 job. Protect the minority from the mob. To ensure neutral refereeing between consensual adults. Thats it. Its not rocket science. In fact i venture that the avg rocket scientist would do a far worse job than your avg joe. Avg joe understands the limits of his intellect and has a healthy respect for the wisdom of crowds. The avg scientist has gone thru life being told how great they are, and now they think they know better than you and me. Kissinger, McNamara, Wolfowitz, Fauci et al believe their hubris to be true and have caused major damage with their decisions.
- vineyardmike 5y ago
  There are tough decisions. Laws are long and complex, and can have huge second order affects that need to be thought out. > Politicians only have 1 job. Protect the minority from the mob. > has a healthy respect for the wisdom of crowds. But is a politicians job to listen to the wisdom of the crowds? > The avg scientist has gone thru life being told how great they are, and now they think they know better than you and me. I sure trust a scientist more on their area of expertise more than I trust my own knowledge. I think people who rise to the top of their field generally believe their own hubris, not just scientists. Doctors think they can do anything, because becoming a doctor is so hard and well rewarded, engineers think they can solve anything because an engineers job is to solve (a specific subdomain of) things. Whenever an engineer tells me an issue is simple and they have the answer, if it's not their field, then they don't. This doubly applies to comments on HN, which have already solved economics, politics, and healthcare, just to name a few.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Supermancho 5y ago
> This is how you get bad candidates. As per the known representative systems, there are countless ways to end up with bad candidates. I don't find this simplistic answer compelling. Notably, Plato (ie The Republic) suggested a relatively pious existence, to combat corruption.

prewett 5y ago

That's a great way to get corruption. Relying on independently wealthy people to sacrificially serve their country is not a reliable way of getting good quality talent. My father spent some time in Bolivia some decades ago, and people in government were paid practically nothing. So there were a lot of bribes expected. And government officials got a fantastic exchange rate on Bolivios -> USD, which after you go through the cycle a few times, ended up with the government transferring the rate subsidy to the official. China also doesn't pay its government officials much, and similarly, there is lots of corruption, which Xi Jinping spent several years cracking down on. At the very least, it will be independently wealthy people (aka "elites") running the country, which brings its own set of problems.

mohanmcgeek 5y ago
GP's idea is extreme but Salary has nothing to go with corruption. Politicians take money not to enrich their lifestyle, but to spend on getting elected/re-elected
IG_Semmelweiss 5y ago
Good quality talent? Who are these people you are referring to as talented? Do you mean talent to lie cheat and steal to the top? Kind of like a CEO? We dont want talented people. Those belong in private industry where the metric for benefit of society is measured in hard currency. We need people NOT talented in government so that the government does what its supposed to, and nothing else

simonebrunozzi 5y ago

Go ahead, be first. I'll wait.

creato 5y ago

Pay peanuts, get monkeys.

sethd 5y ago

> make house members 1:50,000 representation to their county (yes that means the house would explode to 8000 elected officials) I disagree with rest, but something along these lines does seem like a good solution.

kej 5y ago
As a random bit of trivia, the original proposal was for a 1:40,000 representative ratio, and the only opinion George Washington expressed the entire time he chaired the Constitutional Convention was to change the ratio to 1:30,000.

imtringued 5y ago

Why sacrifice yourself before your political career ended? Why not do it afterwards with extremely high capital gains and income taxes (100% tax for anything above $200k) for retired politicians?

IG_Semmelweiss 5y ago
I think i was misunderstood. What you are stating is the same I advocate. (Done with govt, ok cap hits you now) This works well because elected oficials have reporting requirments which means any high income during office is subject to optics and actual regulatory disclosure. Plus, I'm taking for granted that term limits would be put in place first. We need to get rid of the speech circuit retirement.