Hacker News Reader

Comment by Stranger43 | Hacker News Reader

The problem is not with industry insiders leaving private enterprise to go work for the government, the problem is government regulators leaving the government to collect large paychecks from the companies they used to be tasked with regulating, i.e. that there is the appearance of personal benefits to regulate to the benefits of future employers rather then the general public.

What's actually needed is government agencies staffed with industry insiders who knows that they will never ever work in the industry again and have nothing to loose from putting the general public first, but this is kind of hard to do when government work is not seen as something of particularly high status, where people go for self realization after a success career in the private sector.

View on HN

>but this is kind of hard to do when government work is not seen as something of particularly high status,

Super easy to solve for - pay them more.

With the amount of money the government has (the DoD has a nearly 2 trillion dollar yearly budget), it should be relatively trivial to be able to outspend the private sector.

I hate paying taxes, but if those taxes go towards paying an extremely competent professional who will prevent this sort of shit from happening (which would cost us more in taxes to fix), I'm more than happy to pay as much as the government would want me to.

I'm not sure paying more will help. It looks like greed can be boundless, so as long as power converts to money malicious actors will keep abusing it.

Perhaps we should make power unattractive to such types instead, making it not lucrative so that only crazy* individuals who are content with good enough clean salary seek it out of dumb* desire to make the world better.

* In a good way, obviously.

I don't have the links at the moment, but there were some fairly well-researched articles I saw a year or two back about this. The gist was that while our Congresspeople are, indeed, paid quite well by normal-person standards, because of the things they're expected to do (for instance, keep both a home in their district and one in Washington, DC—one of the country's hottest real estate markets), the amount they are paid is low enough that it does lead to significant additional (mostly legalized) bribery.

Making elected positions pay very little, rather than discouraging people who seek wealth, will limit them (even more) to people who are already wealthy, because they will be able to bankroll the expected lifestyle out of pocket.

Furthermore, for those who go into politics looking for money (as opposed to those who go into it looking for power, which is a related, but separate, issue), the salary is peanuts compared to the kinds of money they can get from lobbyists, or as a lobbyist themselves once they leave office. So reducing the salary will have very little effect on that.

> very little

I'm not saying "very little", I'm saying make them pay just enough for a reasonable life and make sure the position of power itself does not convert to money in any way.

> will limit them (even more) to people who are already wealthy, because they will be able to bankroll the expected lifestyle out of pocket.

First, you are ignoring the part about "crazy". If they are willing to go into this knowing they will only be losing money, maybe they have some clean motivations guiding them?

> Furthermore, for those who go into politics looking for money (as opposed to those who go into it looking for power, which is a related, but separate, issue), the salary is peanuts compared to the kinds of money they can get from lobbyists, or as a lobbyist themselves once they leave office

That's what I mean by "make it not lucrative". Power converting to money is a bigger problem than salaries.

As it is, people in power who are already clearly far, far from being poor effect laws just after their relatives sell/buy stocks affected--it's almost as if there's no amount you can pay them to squelch the greed.

If power should not be attractive to people with no integrity pathologically addicted to increasing wealth, then increasing salaries will achieve effect the opposite of desired. They will put their huge salary into stocks then pass laws favorable to their portfolio.

But is it easier to outspend the private contractors(staffed full of former generals) that end up rewarded contracts based on their ability to network with government officials?

The pentagon budget is a chronic scandal and a pretty good example of exactly how the private-public partnerships is creating a system where everyone benefits from the government being seen as inefficient.

>But is it easier to outspend the private contractors(staffed full of former generals) that end up rewarded contracts based on their ability to network with government officials?

Sure. You know, you can also prevent that from happening, right? Any former high ranking military official gets a pretty nice pension and benefits. those alone are more than enough to last a lifetime.

You want to go work at a defense contractor after retiring from the military? Fine, give up your benefits, give up your pension, give up your VA healthcare rights, give up your security clearance.

Using taxpayer money to fund the retirement of a former general who then takes their knowledge and relationships (again, both paid for by taxes) to the private sector to enrich themselves seems highly unethical and a massive conflict of interest. You're essentially bankrolling the development of someone who is going to eventually sell that knowledge to people who profit off of ripping off the very institutions you (as a solider) swore to protect and defend.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com