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Just make inside trading and taking corporate and foreign Pac bribes illegal for them.
Currently these two rules alone are why they rig laws for corportations and big pharma and insurance and oil companies, weapon manufaturers, banks, israel… they work for everyone but the citizens… And that some fucking how is legal and practiced in the open by both Democrats and Conservatives alikeThis is where the real money is, and this is the real source of corruption; their salary is not the problem. In fact, I think the salary should be high enough that normal people will still be interested in the difficult and ugly game of politics. I wouldn’t run for office for less money than I make at my job - I have bills to pay.
I think they should be barred altogether from making stock trades while in office. Maybe their portfolios could go into a blind trusts (or index funds or something) so that they cannot make insider trades. Likewise for their partners and close family.
Manipulating the stock market is the principal motivation behind Trump’s trade and foreign policy. The same can probably be said about many Democrat and Republican congresspeople. Allowing this obscenity is the single greatest weakness of the American political system.
I have a solution. Come up with actual Qol metrics for the average American, check them every 3 months, if they go down a congressman is selected at random for execution.
I like it, but there is a hitch. With climate change, mean QoL is going to fall for the rest of our lives. We can mitigate the suffering and redistribute resources to make things equitable, but the best we can realistically do is improve median QoL.
Yeah, I left it vague because I’m certainly not qualified to determine what that should be.
Sounds good on paper, until you notice this means… only the wealthy would ever bother running for office.
That’s true already
Right. So it wouldn’t change anything.
I’m sure many low wage workers would jump at the chance to actually make a difference.
Why do we think only people who have become career politicians should be politicians? They’re the last people who should do it.
A room of 600 plumbers, nurses, and bin men would make far better decisions than them.
Yes, but in that case adopting Sortition and abolishing career politicians makes way more sense.
That’s the theory behind pensions for most public offices and the police. To remove the temptation for corruption in office… not that it works
If members of Congress earn the average or median wage, that will ensure that only the rich can actually hold that position. Very, very few non-rich people would take that risk.
And it will only encourage lobbying, insider trader, and every other corrupt money making bullshit they still do with what they earn.
And no money from lobbyists, no insider trading and no ability to award contracts to private entities
My thoughts on that was they got paid the average pay for the state the live in. Down here in the south they would have to get food stamps.
Better yet, bring back the ancient Greek lottery for state office.
Yes, but a competency test is essential. 50% of the population are below average intelligence.
Sounds like an improvement over the current US congress already.
I think most countries would benefit from a competency test for public office, maybe even a morality assessment…
The more serious answer to that is that someone then needs to decide what “competent” means. Should a human rights activist be disqualified from office if they’re terrible at math?
Morality tests are even harder to make apolitically. It’s another avenue of attack that could be used maliciously.
I don’t think so. That just creates another way to gatekeep, and that can be corrupted. I’d rather focus on improving education in the first place.
They should also have to use the VA for health insurance
Early retirement, absolutely.
With regards to politicians wages, I think they should be commensurate with the responsibilities of the job. But they should have no other means of income during their term, and potentially for a period afterwards. There would need to be much more stringent auditing and enforcement to ensure this.
Politicians engaging I’m outside employment seems crazy to me, and is clearly a route to corruption.
What responsibilities? Most people just assume there are responsibilities and consequences, turns are out there isn’t. The newest episode of Some More News is about exactly this.
MEDIAN wage. No rich to skew things.
And a wealth cap. If you have 20 million networth but want to give it all up save under 200k (current median networth) to be a public servant then by all means. They made Jimmy Carter give up his peanut farm, which was the right thing, we should do the same for politicians today.
tell that to the silent generation and boomers in congress, mitch, chuck greasley, chuck schumer,etc.
Mitch might show no interest at all in this matter.
I would be okay with their salary being 5 times the federal minimum wage. They want a raise? They must raise the minimum wage.
It should be treated like jury duty. Every year a new politician in every single seat of government. It will be absolutely perfect! Nothing could go wrong.
But then we wouldn’t get “the best people”. /s
I agree with an earlier retirement, but I’m conflicted about the regular wage part.
If gov members work for a “regular” wage, then what would be their incentive in public service vs other jobs. Or what’s stopping them from working a regular wage and then side hustle as the billionaires’ lap dog (not that different now tbh). Good will?
Good will seems to work for teachers and nurses. Problem is more money would likely come from other sources (bribes, lobbying, that sort of thing)
In that case, I suspect it’s just a law enforcement issue. By which I mean, what would happen to a nurse or a doctor who ignored triage and took personal bribes to ensure certain people receive help first, while leaving other people who need more urgent help to die? That’s what should be happening to politicians too IMO.
Ah but who’s going to watch the watcher? Or whose gonna enforce that if you’re the top dog?
Right, but if you get to write the laws about what happens in those cases, I bet those laws have no teeth or are unenforceable
Yeah. Like why would I work for a shit paying but powerful job, unless I have some ulterior motives. Good Samaritans exist but they’re a dime a dozen.
What I’m saying is there are tonnea of people who work hard for low pay everyday (ex. teachers and nurses).
Being in a position of power however would likely corrupt them (or maybe attract corrupt people)
