In San Diego that’s pretty much middle class. And $4500 isn’t going to make that much of a difference. And if you need to maintain two residences, that’s nothing.
Really, being niggardly in how we pay our Reps doesn’t really do anything except make them resentful of us, at some level. It sends a signal that we hold them in less than high regard, deservedly or not, which leads them to lean more to their own interests and/or values, than their districts.
Seems kind of stupid when you get down to it. Maybe if they were less concerned with making a living they might have more time and be able to do a better job, double for staff. I have similar concerns in my work, not the money part but the time spent doing other people’s work and not doing my work, same as Rep X spending so much time fund raising and making deals to secure affordable housing etc, and not legislating and overseeing. Sure we all mocked that whiny GOP Rep who complained about not being able to afford the job, but he is probably right, especially for Freshman Reps. But he deserved all the mockery he got, coz GOP and all.
Maybe they could get a stipend based on their net family worth, like college students getting financial aid. McConnell and Hoyer and what not get nothing and folks like AOC or financially pressed folks get more.
And then we also get more reporting on their activities on the job, but not from them, from an institutional source, “the Congressional Staff” or some such, a body loyal to the House and the Senate and not the members so much.
And new rules that absolutely ban family members from working in the government. And no one from New York City can ever be President. Or Vice President or Speaker or President Tempore. Ever.
There’s a reason that lots of them jump ship to the private sector.
Does seem a bit problematic that you have the board of directors for a country of over 300 million people that make less than middle management at a mid-size corporation.
I’d prefer a more egalitarian model, where every rep gets the same housing allowance, funded by taxes that aren’t capped the way Social Security is currently, so those with high net worth pay more. This has the effect of clawing it back, but doesn’t seem to assume the existence of different classes of representative.
I’m sorta sad for my Rep Duncan the Younger and Dumber Hunter. It’s been pretty obvious that most of his problems could be solved by a big raise. Then he could go back to cheating on his spouse, vaping and being a giant douchecanoe in peace.
The alternative is he could go directly to jail and get free room and board. I’m good with that too.
Sadly even $4500/yr wouldn’t help. So, I guess it’s back to stealing campaign funds and blaming his wife.
If it could be figured out (a big if) I’d love to see them with huge pensions as well, contingent on not taking piles of salary from the people they just finished writing laws about. (But the corrupt ones would just steer the money to family members or fake nonprofits or whatever.)
Democrats decided to nix a section of the funding bill that Congress is set to vote on this week that included a raise for members of Congress and staff. It would’ve been the first time lawmakers had gotten a raise in a decade
And in that decade they actually worked how many days vs the number of days the Congress normally supposed to work. There were times they took a 4 day weekend coming back on a Tuesday, then “working” 3 days only to take a 2 week recess. Then if one looked at the calendars of those 3 days they worked the main part was on the phone looking for cash for their reelections. Therefore one must ask, have they come close to earning that $178K salary over the past decade. In my book, not even close.
In my own opinion, Congress should have term limits that make this a non-issue. If a Representative can only run twice for instance, then the salary will not be the concern. It is only a concern when you look at being a Representative as a career.
Short term limits are a bad idea. It takes a year or two to learn any new job and get really good at it. 5-10 to become an expert in some subsection (especially with all the distractions that congresspeople have). So short term limits would mean that the institutional memory and power would be in the hands of staff – and of all those nice former staffers working for big companies and organizations that absolutely have the best interests of the country at heart.
Term limits in today’s economy would also skew the candidate list even further toward the rich and the corrupt. Very few good, smart people are going to take mid-career breaks as legislators unless they a) don’t have to worry about money or b) think that having the legislative stint on their resume will be worth a bunch of dollars and perks.
“It takes a year or two to learn any new job and get really good at it.” I don’t know what that means in relation to someone who has to vote Yes/No/Abstain based on their sense of the will of the people in their district. The reason it takes so long today is that one has to navigate all the embedded nonsense of senior leadership. When all are equally new, then they are on equal footing. Your point would indicate that any congress person that has only served a single term has been useless throughout our history.
And I don’t see the point in the former staffers being all from big companies either. Their power comes from the length of term their boss has served. Staffers under Steny Hoyer’s have way more power with a Rep who has been in power for 38 years than any freshman Representative… but if they all have to turn over in 2-4 years then the power of the staff decreases.
And I have no idea why you think that serving for 2 years with a salary of $174,000/yr is for someone who ‘doesn’t have to worry about money’… I wish I didn’t have to worry about money like that.
Also, having performed 2-4 years in the House should be a boost to someone’s resume.
The best argument against your position is that they have to run every two years now. The intent was that this body represent the will of the represented. If they need 5-10 years to get up to speed, then the term would be 5-10 years like a Senator’s at 6. The biggest distraction is having to run again, which means having to raise money while you are supposedly governing. If you can only serve 2 terms of 2 years, then you are already NOT running for a Representative seat by the beginning of your second term and can finally focus on exercising the will of the represented if it has taken you two years to learn how to place a vote.