The minimum salary in major league baseball is $700,000.
The people running the country should make more than that.
Here’s that Youtube video of that Gladwell podcast that got me started thinking that an election held via lottery of all the motivated candidates makes a lot of sense. Any process that allows for the election–no, that virtually mandates the election of the types of incompetents and out and out frauds we have currently seated in Congress needs some serious reconsideration, and a lottery would provide us with, I think, better representatives.
Why not the median for someone running a hedge fund or a Fortune100 corporation?
Do we deserve any less?
The salary in Congress is $174,000. The average age of new representatives is around 50 years old.
The median salary of a Harvard Law graduate going into the public sector without experience is $160,000. So about half of them, whose jobs will essentially be scut work for the first few years, are making as much as a 50 year old starting to write the laws they only research.
All this attitude says is that you (plural you) don’t want the country run by capable people. And then you wonder why you get what you wish for.
It’s called “public service,” Not “public gouging.”
Now do that same math for teachers.
The $160k is for those going into the private sector - median salary for those going into public service is $56k.
I definitely support higher pay and higher standards for teachers.
…the full quote, for context:
For a benchmark: in New Zealand, a first-time MP gets about $145,000 AUD per annum. The median wage here is 52,000 AUD.
I think the observation that they have “created this political class that can be so out of touch with what the rest of the country experiences” is an astute one, not a naive one, and this is aptly demonstrated by the decisions made by the Morrison government over the last few years.
Mr Bates hasn’t called for salaries to be lowered. Just expressed a personal opinion that is inline with his personal experiences and values. Nothing to get riled up about. I mean: this is the government that has just been replaced. Scandal after scandal. Systematic lack of accountability. Billions of wasted dollars. There really are more important issues facing Australia than this.
Again, this would leave only millionaires. Remember, you have to rent a 2nd home in an expensive market, and there are many other expenses.
Yes.
Which is a giant part of the same argument.
I worked for government for a decade. The first thing you learn is that people not just don’t want to pay taxes, they don’t want their taxes used to benefit government. That means paying salaries no more than a third of equivalent positions in the public sector, providing inadequate and dismal facilities, substandard equipment (especially IT), and expecting everyone to be available 24/7. It gets progressively harder to attract top personnel. Who wants to put up with that?
And the same goes for teachers. At least most people still consider that a calling, but teachers are leaving in droves. For multiple reasons, but certainly because their pay is not up to the demands made of them today.
The whole of the public sector is like that. As the saying goes, I’ve been rich and I’ve been poor, and rich is better. I worked for NGOs and private companies, and private is better. Since the vast majority of Americans work in the private sector, they have no idea how huge the gulf is.
It’s not just that the best people aren’t going into public service. The salaries and back lack of respect ensure that the mediocre are disproportionally represented. We’re in a crisis.
Congress doesn’t help any. People are electing idiots to office. Congressional aides are so badly paid and overworked that they’re considering unions. Reps can’t increase the size or pay of their staffs because you the people will go crazy if they increase payrolls.
We need to treat government like the overwhelmingly important institution it is. We need to get the best people and pay them enough to want to make careers in the field. We need to do that for the entire executive branch and all the agencies. And down into the state and local levels. Yes, there are idiot leaders at all levels, but I assure you that 99% of the work is done by people just like you, who want to do their jobs but are constrained because there’s not enough of them and no money to spend. Everybody hates taxes. But you get ten times as much value per dollar as you do from giving it to the private sector.
This is basically my argument. Pay people that work in government well. Let’s get the best.
…“the best” isn’t an objective measure: that’s purely a subjective one. I do think that elected officials should be paid well: but pay doesn’t (necessarily) guarantee you will get “the best”, whatever that means.
Yes. Unfortunately, in this country it’s not just Greens who are against the obvious but members of every party as well as independents.
But not bartenders, am I right?
Way back in the day when term limits were being discussed I said, no, let them get elected as many times as they like. Just eliminate the pension – if they want a lifelong career rather then the noblesse oblige I suspect the founding fathers were intending, let them live on Social Security plus whatever they’ve saved up, like the rest of us.
My perspective in these debates over how much a member of Congress “should” be paid is to look at their expected duties:
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Responsible for a staff of anywhere from 15-40 or so specialists across work locations in Washington and multiple sites back in their district.
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Regularly engage in complex negotiations with peers in the legislative and executive branches and interest group representatives.
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Maintain strong relationships and effective communications to understand the priorities of constituents, advocacy groups, employers, state and local officials, and other important stakeholders in the district.
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Weekly travel between Washington and their district as well as substantial time spent in travel to and participation in events throughout the state/district.
To me, that’s a senior executive position. 170K seems cheap.
In the USA, bartenders work on a tip basis. I tip well for good bartenders. There’s also way too many people working the bar that know they’re getting tipped regardless and are horrible workers
But how is that relevant here unless you go one step further — you know, by going on to mention whether you figure AOC was one of the “horrible workers” or one of the “good bartenders”?
They pay into their pensions just like anyone else who works at any other employer. Why should they not get them like anybody else? Because we don’t live in the 1790s anymore? How many of the founders spent most of their careers in politics?
To answer my own question, many, because they were among the wealthy elite of the country and could afford to do so. That tradition is still upheld today as virtually everyone in Congress is a millionaire. Why you want that to continue is beyond me, but as I said earlier you’re getting your wish.