Members of the US House of Representatives earn $174,00.00 a year. If they are a single-family earner, without adding speaking fees or any additional income, that salary puts them above the 90th percentile for wage earners in the US. So, naturally, they think they need a raise.
How about no?
The median income for the average US household is just over $60,000.00. That’s up from $55K only a few years ago. Democrats had nothing to do with that.
Even if they did the only time that should matter is if their pay was tied to the US median family income.
Do the math. What they deserve is a 114,000.00 dollar per year pay cut.
Want to see real reform? Make them pay for their own health insurance like the rest of us and fund their own 401K. None of this matching crap either.
No retirement guarantees either.
And let’s include a prohibition on lobbying forever after serving any elected Federal office.
Want to earn a real living, go back to the private sector, and get a job that creates something. That adds value, instead of draining the life out of it. You can keep your 401K or roll it into one at your new job – or maybe it’s your old job. Because when you can’t get rich in government, you serve the public interest instead of the State’s interest.
It’s not difficult to image how politics changes when it is no longer a career path to wealth. And maybe the so-called money in politics problem starts to solve itself.*
There’s no need to tap dance around the first amendment with your goofy campaign finance regulation schemes. That incumbency protection amendment you’re working. Instead, start a constitutional amendment to tie congressional pay to the mean US family income.
And Democrats should love it. It’s almost like socialism. Elected members of the Federal government can never make more than the average working Comrade. And the only way to make more is to earn it in the private sector.
It’ll never happen, but it would be fun if it did.
*The money in politics problem is not about how much money is spent. It is the inability of the government to limit spending by people on candidates and issues (political speech) it as an institution opposes.
