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> it is why politicians should be required to put their stocks in a blind trust Don't these people get a salary already? If "serving the people" isn't enough a

• _heimdall 11mo ago
  It makes more sense when the government isn't as powerful as it is today. If we didn't ask or expect our governments to do so much the politicians would have much less advantage over the average person.
• bluGill 11mo ago
  I don't want people in congress as a career. Do it for at most 2 terms and get back to the real world. When that is the reality it means we cannot take away their ability to have stocks because when they return "to the real world" they will need that savings. Though while in office they should be limited to buying and selling from blind trusts and such things where they cannot know what happens except the economy in general. However if they own stock before it isn't fair to make them sell it: this is a really hard problem and there probably isn't an answer I will be happy with.
  • mothballed 11mo ago
    I would use straight up sortition rather than voting for congress. Propel people into the job from obscurity, by the time they've learned how to game the system it is time to leave.
    • lordnacho 11mo ago
      Don't we get the same problem? You win the lottery, now you're a senator, and by the way, I have nice brown bag for you.
      • mothballed 11mo ago
        Only if you theorize that power corruption is a step function, and that there isn't survivor bias and influence during the process of getting to the point where you can even win an election. Running an election campaign as anyone but a filthy rich person means you have to accept a brown bag at the beginning with a lot of implied conditions. Sortition means it's at least possible you get someone who isn't looking for the brown bag.
        • greedo 11mo ago
          Lord Acton has a few words about power etc. I don't think most people selected ala Cincinnatus for greatness have the ability to demure when venturing into government at high levels. Quid Pro Quo...
        • lordnacho 11mo ago
          That's a good point actually.
        • mrguyorama 11mo ago
          >Sortition means it's at least possible you get someone who isn't looking for the brown bag. I mean sure, but sortition has tons of it's own problems, and it's actually pretty easy to reduce the requirement to take a bag before you can run a campaign, because this is something every other democratic country manages. The US is the only country that allows you to run campaign adverts years ahead of time. That's expensive. The US has no limits to campaign contributions in the first place, and no ceiling on campaign spending. The US has loudly declared that it is right and just that the mega rich oil Baron can pay for literally every single campaign if they want, and unilaterally control who has access to his funds for getting elected. The US Supreme court has declared that it is a good thing that the oil baron can always outspend average people to get their needs heard. Maybe fix the part of our country where we allowed the supreme court to insist that more money should give you more access and control over government. Maybe fix the part where half the country insists that we should elect "Businessmen" who will run a country like a "Business" because that's somehow a good thing, and that having someone who has direct business interests that are contrary to the interest of the general public run said government is a good way to do things. It's like thinking that Pharma adverts are bad and so we should destroy the pharma industry. Like, no, chill, just ban pharma adverts like the rest of the world.
  • micromacrofoot 11mo ago
    yeah this is exactly it, there's no good way to prevent congress from sharing inside information to enrich people around them in the wake of personal bans... we just need term limits to reduce the surface area
  • nobodyandproud 11mo ago
    For reps, I’m okay with four terms for a total of eight years. Less sure on senators. But on the whole I agree with term limits for Congress. The problem is getting the house full of lifers to agree to the real swamp of government (it’s Congress).
    • alistairSH 11mo ago
      Good news, the average career in the House is already 8 years, so no new law needed! The Senate average is 11 years, so it's already less than 2 terms, no change needed there either! I'm only half kidding - yes, there are outliers, many of whom probably should have retired years ago (but not because they've been around too long, but because they're simply too old to do the job - Pelosi and McConnell come to mind). But, the range of term limits that are usually discussed are already within the existing range, so it doesn't change all that much.
      • mothballed 11mo ago
        Those with longer tenure though tend to end up in the powerful senate positions like becoming a majority/minority leader. Thus you end up with absolute fossils like Pelosi or McConnell who most recently basically snuck in banning hemp into the budget bill, which was something absolutely almost no one in the USA was calling for and incredibly unpopular. I doubt a minority/majority leader with only 2 terms would be as good at snaking in this kind of stuff in, or snaking their way through the politics of various committees to kill off proposed legislation before it's voted upon, that takes practice to really get good at all the underhanded techniques.
      • SoftTalker 11mo ago
        > they're simply too old to do the job I'd absolutely support a maximum age limit, maybe e.g. if you will reach 70 years of age in your term of office you cannot run. So a senator could be elected up to age 64. A Representative up to age 68. And I'd apply that to all elected offices. My biggest criticism of Biden vs. Trump was that they were both too old.
        • 11mo ago
  • komali2 11mo ago
    > 't want people in congress as a career. Do it for at most 2 terms and get back to the real world. How realistic is this though? Getting elected to Congress usually means having some other prior government experience, or your opponents attack you with "why would you give this person responsibility at a congressional level if they've never even worked in local politics?" Not to mention you need name recognition, a history in government that people can use to understand your values as acted, relationships in government to accomplish anything. As I get older it seems that liberal democracy basically requires career bureaucrats to function. I'm very open to discussing other ways of organizing society, but if we're gonna do liberal democracy, seems this is the way.
    • bluGill 11mo ago
      > How realistic is this though? Getting elected to Congress usually means having some other prior government experience, or your opponents attack you with "why would you give this person responsibility at a congressional level if they've never even worked in local politics?" Not to mention you need name recognition, a history in government that people can use to understand your values as acted, relationships in government to accomplish anything. I would contend there are plenty of people in lower levels who can move up or not. Was the mayor of the next town over any good and thus I want to send them onto state congress? Was a library board member two towns over good and I want them in the US house? For that matter, do they run a good honest business (there are lots of businesses) that I can check out locally and thus I want to risk them. The real key is that term limits need to apply to everyone and so nobody will bother asking about experience as there isn't anything more on their side to fall back on. Though in the end you are probably right - doesn't mean I like it. > As I get older it seems that liberal democracy basically requires career bureaucrats to function. I agree, but the people in congress should not be the career bureaucrats.
      • mrguyorama 11mo ago
        > For that matter, do they run a good honest business (there are lots of businesses) that I can check out locally and thus I want to risk them. It's always funny to me how much people hand wring over politicians and then they somehow believe that putting someone who currently and actively has large personal interests and incentives to make government worse for people for their own gain is somehow a good thing If you think politicians doing things to affect their bottom line through stocks is bad, surely you recognize how crystal clear and more direct the incentive is to do that kind of thing when your "asset" is your own business that can't be easily pivoted and depends on labor being cheap and desperate? Nevermind that those kind of people just usually have radically different worldviews about what a government SHOULD do, and that worldview almost never allows for government preventing them from harming people for profit
  • alistairSH 11mo ago
    Think through the downstream impact of term limits... where does the power accumulated by long-term congressmen go? My guess... it flows to either/all of career bureaucrats, lobbyists, or career congressional aides. Do we really want to cede more power to groups that are not elected (bureaucrats, lobbyists) or elected-by-proxy (aides)?
    • bluGill 11mo ago
      Depends on what power we cede. We should give them clear rules so they can make decisions based on their expertise. They should not be making the rules though (except as suggestions to congress - as experts this is an important part of their job)
    • wavemode 11mo ago
      I take the exact opposite view. A revolving door of congresspeople would decrease the influence of lobbying (and, for that matter, the influence of political parties in general), because once a member of congress reaches their term limit they would no longer be influenced by campaign donations. Also, let's take a step back: > where does the power accumulated by long-term congressmen go We need to take a very hard look at any supposedly democratic system in which power is "accumulated" by individuals. Deeply entrenched politicians who never face term limits nor reelection resistance have no reason whatsoever to care about the will of the people.
      • alistairSH 11mo ago
        nor reelection resistance Ding ding! I think that's the real problem. If I were king for a day, I'd end gerrymandering and replace it with non-partisan (probably algorithmic) districting. And I'd shit-can partisan primaries and introduce approval voting or instant-runoff (or something similar).
      • mrguyorama 11mo ago
        > A revolving door of congresspeople would decrease the influence of lobbying Make an argument that actually supports this rather than asserting it. Most people who study this kind of thing outright disagree. Lobbying in the US doesn't happen because we let people work in government for a long time, plenty of other countries do that, it happens because we are one of the only places that legally empower rich people to pay for the campaigns of elected officials and have one of the most expensive political campaigning systems in the world and we openly claim lobbying to be a right of rich people. Political parties in the US yet again come back to just how absurdly expensive running a campaign is in the US, largely because we refuse to regulate it. Other countries don't allow candidates to run advertisements a full year in advance because that's wasteful and stupid. Candidates are beholden to the political parties for campaign funding. Even Bernie suckles the political party teat to maintain his seat. If you don't fix that but you limit the ability of a politician to gain mindshare simply by doing a good job in congress (because you only give them two terms) all you have done is make it easier for rich people to control who can get elected. Indeed, even the US system used to be better! The Civil Rights Act was bipartisan, with meaningful republican support, because there used to be socially progressive republicans! There used to be racist asshole democrats! When the Clinton government was cutting programs, prominent republican representatives from Texas were actively working with prominent Democrat representatives to maintain funding to the particle collider project there. But as America continued to enshrine the right of the rich to fund politicians, and continued to let campaign costs balloon to the point that only a rich person's super PAC or the literal party establishments could afford to run one, what did you expect to happen? Trumps power over the republican party is fascinating because it largely isn't money based. He's just so populist among republican voters that he can unilaterally control who gets elected regardless of funding. This is generally a fucking bad thing, because trump sucks, but it's just a more direct version of what the Democrat and Republican parties have done for a few decades now. Are you aware that both democrat and republican lawmakers spend most of their time on the phone calling and begging rich people to fund their next election campaign, even right after an election? None of this goes away with term limits. All you are doing is giving the people who hold the purse more power over elections. How good would you be at your job if you had to spend a few million dollars every four years to keep it? How good would you be if your company's competitors were loudly offering to pay that burden?
  • titzer 11mo ago
    > Do it for at most 2 terms and get back to the real world. Guaranteeing they never get good at their job, and institutional knowledge keeps decaying. We need to stop pretending that Congress or any of these elected positions don't require skills. I think to be a Congressperson you have to go to specific trade school--let's call it Congress U--graduate with high honors, serve in some other government capacity, and your grades are public record. Only then are you qualified to even run for election. Democracy isn't about letting any random firebrand run things. Heck, we don't even let random firebrands install electricity.
    • SoftTalker 11mo ago
      Disagree. The main motivation for serving in Congress should be just that - service to the country. Not personal power building, not a career. The actual process, writing bills, parliamentary procedure, is all managed by staff anyway. The representative or senator is mainly the face of the office and should be mostly talking with constituents and not buried in policy. If there's one qualification test I would possibly support it would to pass a high school AP US History exam.
      • wyre 11mo ago
        That's the main motivation to serving in the army, but that still requires training and exams.
    • zimpenfish 11mo ago
      > Guaranteeing [that congressional lawmakers] never get good at their job I don't know if you've been paying much attention to US politics since the year 2000 but the vast majority of them are no good at their job regardless of how long they've been there. > We need to stop pretending that Congress or any of these elected positions don't require skills. I don't think anyone does? But currently the only real skills you need for attaining high US office are 1) be rich and/or have enough rich people in your phone book or 2) the ability to make Donald Trump feel like a special boy. > Democracy isn't about letting any random firebrand run things. waves in US/UK/Argentina/Brazilian politics over the last decade
  • exasperaited 11mo ago
    > I don't want people in congress as a career. Do it for at most 2 terms and get back to the real world. This means you want them to do a job for four years when it takes them two or three to learn how to do it.
  • xp84 11mo ago
    Since they are supposed to be serving their country and not seeking personal gain, their interests should be aligned with those of the whole country. As a condition of taking office, they should surrender their entire stock portfolio to a government custodian in exchange for a federally-held broad market index fund. While in office, they are free to sell from that fund if they need the money and free to buy more of that, but no other securities. When they leave office, they are owed the present value of their index fund, and can repurchase whatever they want to. All of these could be made non-taxable events, so that if someone wants to just go back into the same positions they had, there isn’t any complication. To me, the above seems slightly complex, but well worth undertaking in order to stop this blatant and shameless corruption. As we’ve seen with the current president, though, it’s much more difficult when they own and control whole businesses instead of just fungible securities. To be fair to the president, there isn’t really any reasonable way to get rid of his massive conflicts of interest besides having a pre-inauguration IPO for all his companies and retaining 0 shares - and his family retaining nothing too. But that’s a bigger problem that probably cant be solved. Stocks though, it would be easy, they just don’t want to solve it.
  • ambicapter 11mo ago
    Doesn't that imply that everyone in Congress will be amateur at best at being congressman?
    • wavemode 11mo ago
      Being a congressperson isn't something you're supposed to have to get good at. You're supposed to just be a representative of the people. The "experts" in government are the nonelected officials, advisors and agencies. For similar reasons, all presidents are newbies. The benefits of having one with lots of experience would be vastly outweighed by the downsides...
    • LunaSea 11mo ago
      Like most founding fathers were at the time?
  • bjourne 11mo ago
    Yeah, but that makes them susceptible to lobby groups. They offer the politicians cushy jobs after their political career in exchange for political services. Politician probably has to be a sustainable and well-paid career somehow.
  • bumby 11mo ago
    I’m only playing devils advocate here but the counter argument is society is very complex and it takes time to understand it to a sufficient degree. Short term limits would mean a Congress making impactful decisions without fully understanding the ramifications, or they just rely on unelected bureaucrats and lobbyists to tell them what to do. The counter counter argument is that you could be a career politician working your way up: two terms at city council, two as mayor, two as governor etc…and by the time someone is voted into the national stage they presumably have decades of experience.
  • fn-mote 11mo ago
    > 2 terms and get back to the real world We are not the first people to come up with this idea. I think it is generally believed that the less time legislators serve the more power accrues to the bureaucracy and other non-elected positions. This is also an undesirable situation. Possibly worse than the disease, so to speak.
• micromacrofoot 11mo ago
  it's not really possible considering that most retirement accounts are stock portfolios — it also doesn't matter too much on an individual level because an individual ban just gets pushed to sharing stock tips with extended family (already happens), family bans get pushed to friends, etc... I really think the best and maybe only way to avoid this wealth building nonsense are much harsher term limits — public service should be severely limited to prevent people from being in decades long positions to abuse it. Term limits also prevent the incessant campaign fundraising to some extent, because say you're limited to 2 terms... there's not much point in personal fundraising on your last one
  • zucked 11mo ago
    Agree -- strict term limits would be a gamechanger in a lot of ways.
• zucked 11mo ago
  I have a hot take on this that I think could actually make some headway: - We raise the congressional salary. Say, maybe double them across the board. BUT in exchange, you, your immediate family, and any business, LLC, or other similar vehicle you are a named party to as a consultant, beneficiary, owner, or investor must divest of specific investments and can only hold the equivalent value of an index fund that tracks the general market. Or, you can remove yourself from the investment/ownership vehicle during the term you serve as a congressperson. Problem solved? Probably not, but it's an interesting thought experiment. I'm sure there are a bunch of loopholes I haven't fully through through, too.
  • kspacewalk2 11mo ago
    > Or, you can remove yourself from the investment/ownership vehicle during the term you serve as a congressperson. The problem with "blind trusts" is that even blind men wink and nudge. It's quite hard to police a veritable horde of Congressmen who pinky-swear to never pass information along to friends, relatives and various other associates, employed by them or otherwise.
    • matwood 11mo ago
      Which can be solved with insider trading enforcement of political figures and their associates. This SEC already does this to 'normal' people.
      • kspacewalk2 11mo ago
        It can be. But it's quite hard. And frequently unsuccessful. The concept of "insider trading" sounds great and unambiguous until some examination, but becomes quite ripe for loophole-finding exercises afterwards.
    • zucked 11mo ago
      I honestly don't know how you put a cone of silence around congresspeople such that insider trading anywhere in their sphere of influence is impossible. My intent would be to make it difficult for the congressperson to directly benefit from passing along insider info and compensate them enough such that it isn't a practical path. Sure, they could still tell friends to buy/sell, but if the friend *does* act on that, it's sure going to raise eyebrows when they try to wire $1M worth of proceeds to the congressperson for "movie & pizza night". And I know that the next stone to be cast is "yeah, but if they help friends/business associates beat the market, congresspeople can still benefit with board seats and jobs when they're done with congressional terms". That's totally valid, and I have no idea how to combat that.
• alistairSH 11mo ago
  If we don't pay them well (and we arguably already fail to do that[1]), then it becomes really hard for anybody but the independently wealthy to be in Congress. 1 - $174,000 is the current salary. With that, they have to maintain two households (one in DC, one in home district/state). That salary is far from unusual for white collar workers in major metro areas.
  • embedding-shape 11mo ago
    Yes, like every other profession in the US seemingly, Congress is also underpaid. But letting them individually fight for getting as money as they possible can before they retire via means the typical person doesn't have access to, isn't right either. I agree they should be paid appropriately, so they also can survive on their salary, but still think they shouldn't be able to do certain things others can, because of their position.
    • alistairSH 11mo ago
      Agreed. I'd prefer they were required to use a blind trust. Or, possibly immediate reporting on trades.
  • FridayoLeary 11mo ago
    Give them spending rights. You need a second home in DC? Ok, if you pass a means test we reimburse your rent and travel costs. There's no sense in giving them additional excuses for not doing their job. 174k is plenty of money to live off.
  • BurningFrog 11mo ago
    I would bump it to $10M/year. In terms of importance, this is still vastly underpaying these jobs. That should take the edge off any money seeking schemes. It's hard to bribe the wealthy! For 435 congress people and 100 senators, that adds up to $5.35B, which is about 6 hours of federal spending.
    • wqaatwt 11mo ago
• ralferoo 11mo ago
  Your argument seems to be that those in public service should only survive on their salaries, because "doing it for the people" is enough of a reward that they don't need to worry about such trivialities as money. There's no good reason to stop anyone from owning stocks. It's part of any sensible person's retirement strategy. The issue is whether there's a conflict of interest there, and blind trusts or broad market ETFs are two good ways of addressing that issue. Other alternatives include announcing their intention to trade in specific stocks several months in advance of doing so, so that even if they know about specific long-term future advantages a company might have, it's public knowledge and others can also trade in a similar way. But the easiest solutions by far are blind trusts and broad market ETFs.
  • ImPostingOnHN 11mo ago
    > There's no good reason to stop anyone from owning stocks. It's part of any sensible person's retirement strategy. Congrescritters already have a retirement strategy provided to them for free courtesy of the American people: a pension. On top of that, many of them never retire, they just hold power and keep collecting paychecks until the day they die.
• wat10000 11mo ago
  Their salary is not nearly enough. FAANG SWEs make several times more money for something that's quite a bit less important. Their pay is pretty good, but they also have a job which requires them to stay away from home (for most of them) for long periods of time. The pay is not really enough to maintain a household and a second living space comfortably. I get the sentiment that they shouldn't be in it for the money. But money is important even for idealists. Let's say someone wants to serve the people, but not enough to take a $174,000/year salary with a lot of travel and needing to pay for lodging in a remote city, when they could be making $500,000/year at Facebook instead. Would you say that this person doesn't want to serve the people enough, and shouldn't run? Maybe you would, but the problem is that you mostly won't get people who want to serve even more. By paying a relatively low salary, you'll end up getting: 1. Idealists with poor prospects in the job market. 2. Extreme idealists with good job prospects. 3. People who think they can leverage the position to make enough money to offset the difference in pay. 4. People rich enough not to care about piddling W-2 income. In practice, categories 3 and 4 will win. According to https://www.quiverquant.com/congress-live-net-worth/ https://www.quiverquant.com/congress-live-net-worth/, 107 members, or 20%, of Congress has a net worth of over $10 million. That net worth is in the top 2% of their age group. 16 members, or 3%, have a net worth of over $100 million. And of course people don't tend to attain substantial net worth without having an eye for ways to make money, so it's very likely that those people will abuse their position to make money as long as they think they can get away with it. I'd rather see a substantially increased salary, something like $1 million/year, so that ordinary people with decent skills can see serving in Congress as something they don't have to sacrifice for, financially. That would create a lot more competition for those positions and push out some of the extremely wealthy ones.
  • LunaSea 11mo ago
    > The pay is not really enough to maintain a household and a second living space comfortably. Who's talking about a second living space? They can move like most Americans do for work when the commute is too much. > Let's say someone wants to serve the people, but not enough to take a $174,000/year salary with a lot of travel and needing to pay for lodging in a remote city, when they could be making $500,000/year at Facebook instead. Then they can go work for Facebook. Who cares what they would like to have. > Would you say that this person doesn't want to serve the people enough, and shouldn't run? Yes. > Maybe you would, but the problem is that you mostly won't get people who want to serve even more. Source? > In practice, categories 3 and 4 will win. According to https://www.quiverquant.com/congress-live-net-worth/ https://www.quiverquant.com/congress-live-net-worth/, 107 members, or 20%, of Congress has a net worth of over $10 million. That net worth is in the top 2% of their age group. 16 members, or 3%, have a net worth of over $100 million. Before or after they started their career? > I'd rather see a substantially increased salary, something like $1 million/year, so that ordinary people with decent skills can see serving in Congress as something they don't have to sacrifice for, financially. Ordinary people don't have the expectation of needing to be payed $1M to serve their country. > That would create a lot more competition for those positions and push out some of the extremely wealthy ones. The wealthy ones just use their wealth to get ahead.