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> Often the senator's aides earn more than the senators themselves. Fine. People motivated by money should take jobs other than sitting in Congress.
by andrewflnr 6mo ago
> Often the senator's aides earn more than the senators themselves.
Fine. People motivated by money should take jobs other than sitting in Congress.
- cbdevidal 6mo agoAgreed. One thing I appreciate about New Hampshire’s state congress is their pay is fixed at $100/year.
- tstrimple 6mo agoGreat way to ensure only the independently wealthy can participate in politics.
- cbdevidal 6mo agoOr they have side gigs. Many of the founders of our nation had side gigs[1]. New Hampshire is number one freest state[2], 20th place for GDP per capita[3], 8th happiest state in the nation[4], and second-safest state in the nation[5]. They must be doing something right. [1] https://theturnaroundauthority.com/2014/07/02/professions-of-our-founding-fathers/ https://theturnaroundauthority.com/2014/07/02/professions-of... [2] https://www.freedominthe50states.org/overall/new-hampshire https://www.freedominthe50states.org/overall/new-hampshire [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_GDP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ... [4] https://wallethub.com/edu/happiest-states/6959 https://wallethub.com/edu/happiest-states/6959 [5] https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/crime-and-corrections/public-safety/violent-crime-rate https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/crime-and-c...
- 6AA4FD 6mo agoMany if not most intelligent and skilled people are highly motivated by money, not just in pursuit of material comfort but security for their spouse, offspring, and extended family. I am skeptical of an arrangement where those incentives are at odds with care for critical infrastructure like our political process. That being said, the current arrangement makes it vastly more profitable to destabilize the economy and sell short than stabilize it and buy long, which is clearly unacceptable to me.
- ToValueFunfetti 6mo ago~Everybody is motivated by money or else not motivated at all. Money is potential energy for essentially any objective you might have, whether that's developing new tech or donating to charity. By cutting money out, you just select for the subset of people who are more motivated by power or status or who already have more money than they know what to do with.
- direwolf20 6mo agoSenators should be paid three times the lower quartile wage.
- andrewflnr 6mo agoIt should be obvious that there's a balance between wanting enough money to live comfortably and wanting as much money as possible. Government jobs should be good enough for the former.
- mothballed 6mo agoI don't think people that are electable are usually the kind of people that should be in congress. If you have the kind of personality and allegiances to be representing the common man, you can't get elected due to how that process works. Sortition makes way more sense to me for something like a congress. You just end up with a random selection of the population.
- 420official 6mo agoNot paying officials enough leads to bribery and corruption. Take away their avenue for insider trading, but let them make a healthy living off it in my opinion.
- andrewflnr 6mo agoDo you not think 174k is "enough"?