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> US lawmakers make millions of dollars beyond their salaries 1. For those where this is true, this is a MAJOR problem. 2. For those where this is false, this

> US lawmakers make millions of dollars beyond their salaries 1. For those where this is true, this is a MAJOR problem. 2. For those where this is false, this means that we're underpaying lawmakers severely. > The paycheck simply isn’t a significant factor in whether or not someone wants to be a senator or representative. Should it? I think the primary pay of Senators / Representatives should be their paycheck. Not dark money pools from who knows where. You're basically accepting blatant corruption as if its inevitable. Erm... no. Lets raise salaries so that Congressmen can take up two houses across the country (one at home for their families, and a 2nd home in the Wash. DC area so they can do their job). And then increase the wages high enough so that "normal people" apply for the position. Its not like the uber-rich, the independently wealthy, or the paid off bribed people are who we want as Congressmen or Senators. We actually want normies. ------- Once Senators / Congressmen are at like $300k, which is high but reasonable IMO given the overall budget of the country, then we can work on the GS scale and Executive scale as appropriate. The FBI Director making only $180k can be raised to $300k, and then the layman FBI agent can rise above $70k. The GS Payscale is a fine idea but only when the top-of-the-ladder truly represents the top. And not "top for government employee" but "top for the country", so that we're actually offering competitive wages and attracting solid talent in all areas of government.

nurple 3y ago
Or we could just abolish representative government that was created to work around limitations in the predominant communication tech at the time, horseback. The corruption does feel inevitable here as we sit and watch the federal gov rob the country blind while shamelessly enriching their families. No, I wouldn't take a rep's job for even $500k/year, and neither will anyone with the moral mettle to make changes, exactly because they can see the impossibility. More money is not a solution to greed and self-dealing.
- dragontamer 3y ago
  > More money is not a solution to greed and self-dealing. Less money causes self-dealing behavior though. Because now there's widespread acceptance that the only way a $180k wage is worthwhile for our leadership class is if they take widespread bribes. Drop the wages enough, and even FBI agents are going to have to self-deal to make their positions worthwhile taking. Be glad its only on the leadership class for now. > Or we could just abolish representative government that was created to work around limitations in the predominant communication tech at the time, horseback. That's not a serious discussion point until you say what you're replacing it with. My discussion point is pretty simple. Raise wages on the top-end scale of government (ex: Senators, Congressmen, and executives like FBI Director) to $300k, raise the top end GS-scale to $280k, and let the rest of the GS scale flow naturally from that down to the bottom. As I said before, the GS system and overall compensation of the government is actually fine. Its just that the top-end number is far too low, in part because of our ridiculously low wages that we grant to our top-level officials. -------- > No, I wouldn't take a rep's job for even $500k/year, and neither will anyone with the moral mettle to make changes I'd maybe consider it. But $180k is so low that I'd never consider it.
  - beanjuiceII 3y ago
    I've been dealing with the government salary situation for 15 years. Low GS pay is why we have to take bottom of the barrel for organization employees. Contracts are gigantic and allow people to make great salary at a very low bar (because the bar is set by the low skill GS workers). What if I told you developers writing stuff like jquery, excel, ms access are making between 200-300$/yr. and I wont even get into what experienced people make. Basically the "official" system the one people see in public is extremely broke. What is crazy is I will see people say how high those GS salaries are, and then just chuckle if they ever really knew. What is the alternative though? These orgs can't fall back to their GS paid workers, because they don't have the skills..so they are stuck. GS really does have to get a massive bump, and I fear anyone who thinks otherwise just lacks the experience in the matter, and I wouldn't expect them too because there's so many details that are unseen.
    - dragontamer 3y ago
      Yeah, we all work for the tech field here, don't we? None of our bosses take anything less than what I'm asking for here. If anything, the numbers I've mentioned are lower than people should expect.
  - sneak 3y ago
    > Less money causes self-dealing behavior though. Because now there's widespread acceptance that the only way a $180k wage is worthwhile for our leadership class is if they take widespread bribes. I think you have cause and effect mixed up. These positions would come with millions of dollars per year in job perks even if they paid $10M cash per year. The perks come from the power, not the size of the paycheck. Making it bigger won’t reduce the financial value of the power they wield. Also, even if it would, $300k is not a lot of money. You’re off by at least one order of magnitude. For example, the CEO of Mozilla makes around $7M per year.

nurple 3y ago

Or we could just abolish representative government that was created to work around limitations in the predominant communication tech at the time, horseback. The corruption does feel inevitable here as we sit and watch the federal gov rob the country blind while shamelessly enriching their families. No, I wouldn't take a rep's job for even $500k/year, and neither will anyone with the moral mettle to make changes, exactly because they can see the impossibility. More money is not a solution to greed and self-dealing.

dragontamer 3y ago
> More money is not a solution to greed and self-dealing. Less money causes self-dealing behavior though. Because now there's widespread acceptance that the only way a $180k wage is worthwhile for our leadership class is if they take widespread bribes. Drop the wages enough, and even FBI agents are going to have to self-deal to make their positions worthwhile taking. Be glad its only on the leadership class for now. > Or we could just abolish representative government that was created to work around limitations in the predominant communication tech at the time, horseback. That's not a serious discussion point until you say what you're replacing it with. My discussion point is pretty simple. Raise wages on the top-end scale of government (ex: Senators, Congressmen, and executives like FBI Director) to $300k, raise the top end GS-scale to $280k, and let the rest of the GS scale flow naturally from that down to the bottom. As I said before, the GS system and overall compensation of the government is actually fine. Its just that the top-end number is far too low, in part because of our ridiculously low wages that we grant to our top-level officials. -------- > No, I wouldn't take a rep's job for even $500k/year, and neither will anyone with the moral mettle to make changes I'd maybe consider it. But $180k is so low that I'd never consider it.
- beanjuiceII 3y ago
  I've been dealing with the government salary situation for 15 years. Low GS pay is why we have to take bottom of the barrel for organization employees. Contracts are gigantic and allow people to make great salary at a very low bar (because the bar is set by the low skill GS workers). What if I told you developers writing stuff like jquery, excel, ms access are making between 200-300$/yr. and I wont even get into what experienced people make. Basically the "official" system the one people see in public is extremely broke. What is crazy is I will see people say how high those GS salaries are, and then just chuckle if they ever really knew. What is the alternative though? These orgs can't fall back to their GS paid workers, because they don't have the skills..so they are stuck. GS really does have to get a massive bump, and I fear anyone who thinks otherwise just lacks the experience in the matter, and I wouldn't expect them too because there's so many details that are unseen.
  - dragontamer 3y ago
    Yeah, we all work for the tech field here, don't we? None of our bosses take anything less than what I'm asking for here. If anything, the numbers I've mentioned are lower than people should expect.
- sneak 3y ago
  > Less money causes self-dealing behavior though. Because now there's widespread acceptance that the only way a $180k wage is worthwhile for our leadership class is if they take widespread bribes. I think you have cause and effect mixed up. These positions would come with millions of dollars per year in job perks even if they paid $10M cash per year. The perks come from the power, not the size of the paycheck. Making it bigger won’t reduce the financial value of the power they wield. Also, even if it would, $300k is not a lot of money. You’re off by at least one order of magnitude. For example, the CEO of Mozilla makes around $7M per year.