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Comment by roenxi | Hacker News Reader

Pay peanuts, get monkeys. And if US politicians are expected to be free of corruption and draw an average salary nobody would even be willing to do it. Statistically the US president is one of the most dangerous jobs around [0] and all the politicians are subject to tides of abuse whether they seem to be doing a principled job or not.

The US would be far better off figuring out how to make its politicians do a good job before worrying about how outrageously they are compensated. Even the current fog of corruption they manage isn't as big a deal as the policies they push through as part of their routine above-the-counter activities. It's a sausage factory, the process of making the sausage isn't going to be pretty.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presiden... alone and you just need to look at Obama before and after to see what the stress does.

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> Pay peanuts, get monkeys

As opposed to now with all the highly qualified congresspersons.

Name 1 company that makes over $1 Billion in annual revenue where somebody 2 links below the top makes less than a congressional salary. Congress critters are paid peanuts and also rent in an above-median cost of living area as well as their own district.

~150k sounds like a big salary but when you're very much in charge of trillions of annual revenue it's not.

This is like the CEOs who "only get paid $1"

Salary is not where congresspeople make their money and if you don't think that being in congress is a good way to make lots of money right now I don't know what to tell you

> This is like the CEOs who "only get paid $1"

We're so obviously talking about total compensation. CEOs making $1 while getting billions in stock appreciation or literally hundreds of millions in stock grants are not making $1/year by any reasonable definition.

> f you don't think that being in congress is a good way to make lots of money right now I don't know what to tell you

So, you want to keep the status quo where the people who are correctly compensated for their role are the ones willing to front-run their own citizens? (And also spending their time front-running instead of their elected job?)

> So, you want to keep the status quo where the people who are correctly compensated for their role are the ones willing to front-run their own citizens? (And also spending their time front-running instead of their elected job?

No, those are actually entirely different words than what I have said.

The point is reducing that reliance on side channels, including the topical ban on trading.

Yeah $150k in DC is comfortable but far from luxurious (if you have a family, which it seems like most congresspeople do). It would not be enough to incentivize me to do the job of a congressperson.

Also consider the need to maintain a home back in their home districts.

Mark Zuckerberg's salary is only $1 a year! He must be homeless given bay area housing prices!

Right, I get that they make most of their money from sources other than their salary. But that seems like something we should aim to discourage, as it is pretty ripe for abuse. It is clear that many of them trade on non-public information, and for those that own businesses there's a lot of incentive to push legislation that helps the business. So if we were to ban most of that and have them live just on their salaries, I think the salaries should be higher given the challenges/responsibility of the job and the area they're living in.

Most are well-educated and "qualified"; integrity and ethics are the bigger problems.

I submit that most people with college degrees, including those in politics, do not meet the bare minimum standard of what it means to be truly educated.

The current pay for members of the House of Representatives and Senate is $174,000 per year [1]

Rayiner is claiming we would get better members if we raise it to $1 million per year, to which your reply is unresponsive.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salaries_of_members_of_the_Uni...

$174k is not an accurate representation of the wealth accumulated from being a member of congress.

That’s the point. They’re making money from side channels.

The idea is that if you pay them $1M, they won’t do their side channel earnings (and therefore reduce their potential conflicts of interest)

This idea seems straightforward me, but I'm a huge nerd, and every time I try to explain it to normal people they're so offended by the idea that they talk to me like I'm crazy.

Do you notice a trend of rich people becoming disinterested in amassing further riches?

They just hire someone to do their trading for them and buy an island to go along with their yacht.

Trump has far more than that, but he still seems willing to abuse the office to make himself even richer.

Why do you assume they would stop gathering money from side channels? You would need to tie the increase to a prohibition against side/back channel money.

Both seems highly unlikely to me.

If you pay them 170k salary, then a 50k donation/bribe/dinner is very lucrative.

If you pay them $1M salary, then a 50k donation/bribe/dinner is less convincing.

This isn’t going to stop it, but perfect shouldn’t be the enemy of better.

Then the bribe will increase to 300,000 and we're back to square one but with more inflation. Just to use the same argument they would have against raising minimum wage...

> This isn’t going to stop it, but perfect shouldn’t be the enemy of better.

There are less "causes" that have the ability to fund a $300k bribe so even with that argument, we're still better off. (And it costs those causes more, bigger paper trails etc.)

The pettiness of bribes has always surprised me. 3K, 5K, that kind of money. A few thousand dollars is all it takes to buy a senator, and they are largely already multi-millionaires. Raising their salary won't help, because, just like Trump cheating suppliers, there's no way the issue is money.

I think there are a couple flaws in your logic. One, $50k is $50k and spends the same whether you make $174k or $1M. It’s money you didn’t have and now you do and if it’s completely legal to receive it, why wouldn’t you take it? I would at either level of salary if it was legal and was an interest I wasn’t morally opposed to. Generally donations to garnish support will be for things that are not going to go directly against the politician’s morals—assuming they have morals.. If they are willing to take the donations and entertain special interest money, they are willing to take it despite their income high or low.

Another is assuming that the price to buy support is fixed and the coffers are limited. The price might be $50k because perhaps that is the sweet spot on your target, but support and donations will go higher if needed and the special interest is motivated to garner support.

Just look at how great all the CEOs getting tens of millions of dollars are doing.

This is nothing but wishful thinking at best, and appeal to wealth at worst.

AOC and MGT would suggest high pay is not a sufficient gate.

I may not agree with her politics, but from what I can tell, AOC is intelligent, articulate, more than willing to inform herself about an issue before voting on or having a hearing about it, and most importantly, she appears to genuinely wish to represent her constituents to the best of her ability.

I would happily clear and re-populate both parties with candidates sharing those traits.

MTG, on the other hand, is and always has been an internet troll, and not even a high-quality troll - merely a ball of ignorance and bigotry that comes a dime a dozen in any competitive online game lobby or forum.

They’re both ignorant and represent similarly low information districts.

A few examples of AOC’s reasons for proper comparison to MGT. Personally, to these I would add acts of drama like the emotional breakdown at the border, modeling the expensive ‘Tax the rich’ dress, etc.

Google can bring many more examples. AOC is not more intelligent than MGT. They are two sides of the same coin.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/1857375/three-gaf...

https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/07/politics/alexandria-ocasio-co...

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/politics/2024/10/30/alexandri...

What is the AOC equivalent of MGT believing that California wildfires were started by Jewish space lasers to clear land for high speed rail?

Probably not so imaginative as that, but there’s a whole YouTube channel devoted to AOC’s stupidity.

Favorites might include the one where she fails in trying to identify the three branches of government, or the one where she says congressional reps are inaugurated and sign bills. Those don’t have the amusing color of MGTs idiotic statement, but they are every bit as stupid and maybe even more shocking, given her job.

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