214
Retiring House Republican says $174,000 isn't enough money for members of Congress: 'Most of us don't have wealth'
(www.businessinsider.com)
this post was submitted on 06 Jan 2024
214 points (95.0% liked)
politics
19088 readers
3682 users here now
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
The problem is you don't pay them very much comparatively and so they take bribes and "gifts" to make up for the salary. Just look at Clarance Thomas. He said he needed a raise or he'd go full on corrupt. He did not get a raise. He went full corrupt.
Or we could, yknow, actually prosecute the corrupt ones. Likely a pipedream, but there is another option besides overpay them or allow blatant corruption.
Yeah. We can do what we do now. Overpay them and allow blatant corruption.
They do this no matter how much money we waste on them.
I hear your point, and it might be true, but it's only a hypothesis because, in the grand scheme of things, they aren't paid well relative to other work with significantly lower amounts of responsibility.
A young software developer working at Netflix or Amazon would be making more than them. A Congress person in a whole foods in silicon valley could very easily be the poorest customer in the store.
Scarface said "First you get the money, then you get the power, then you get the women". I believe that this is the American dream, at least in the eyes of people who end up in high government.
Their path is different though, power comes first, THEN the money, THEN the women. If we paid them at least enough to enable sexy affairs, I think they could round out the three without as much incentive to go full on corrupt
"We should pay these corrupt pieces of shit even more money, and maybe they'll stop taking bribes" is a hypothesis we've tested PLENTY of times. The results are conclusive: the people we put into office are overpaid at any price, and are corrupt no matter how much money we waste on them.
When has this hypothesis been tested in the USA?
Where are these conclusive results you speak of?
Every single time we gave them a raise.
They're still corrupt.
Yes we have. We keep increasing congress' pay like you want, and they keep taking bribes like you want.
If someone did a study on whether raising the minimum wage impacts people's quality of life, raised it a penny, found that people were still in poverty, and said "we should give up on minimum wages," would that convince you? Your statement, that we've raised congressional wages and corruption is still present, is an equivalent argument. No one is arguing that giving politicians any raise will completely eliminate corruption. I would argue that we should give members of congress wages comparable to the amount of money they would get from taking bribes, and the result will be reduced, not eliminated, corruption.
Comparing someone who makes 6 figures to someone who makes minimum wage is insulting to the latter.
Particularly since the former is responsible for keeping the latter's wages stagnant while whining about how he's not compensated enough for doing so.
You're right. The point I was making was that congressional members are like people with minimum wage. Your response is definitely not dodging my argument.
The point you were making is that congressturds aren't rich enough and that we should just spam money at them and that will magically make them less corrupt. Bringing up minimum wage workers who haven't seen a raise in decades in that context is utterly disgusting.
That's not the point I was making, and bringing that up isn't disgusting.
Removed for abelist language. Take that out and you're golden.
We could enlist a corp of hot young women from all over the world , and bring them to a private island ….