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Retiring House Republican says $174,000 isn't enough money for members of Congress: 'Most of us don't have wealth'
(www.businessinsider.com)
this post was submitted on 06 Jan 2024
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What about the rest of us, who manage to scrape by on 60K or less after y’all have already taxed away a third of it? Where’s our relief you whiny shit? 💩
It’s about the market I’m afraid - someone with the attributes necessary to be an effective politician is likely to be able to use those skills to get a top management job in a big company and earn > 200k easily. If the gap between that and the politicians salary is too great then the only people who become politicians will have other strong other motives, which may be noble, but are often narcissistic or corrupt.
We run into the same issue with university professors. Especially with studies like economics, engineering or IT.
University professors don't dictate national policy.
That's not what they implied... And heck, they are the ones who teach the people who will eventually dictate national policies!
Seeing what supposedly educated politicians are saying, I have a doubt they attended a single class.
Bold of you to assume politicians are getting STEM degrees. Most don't even understand the basics of computer networking.
Original text I replied to:
We run into the same issue with university professors. Especially with studies like economics, engineering or IT.Now let's simply it for you:
It's an issue with ALL professors and especially the ones in economics, engineering and IT.What's funny is that there's plenty of politicians that study economics so that's one field out of three that were mentioned, and the vast majority of politicians go to university so that's covered in the first part.
To be fair, they do typically need staff that are paid by themselves. They need a residence in DC and their home state too.
Build them dormitories in DC.
Let them live in their cars like Americans, then.
Not legally possible afaik
Edit: I'm wrong, thank you to Knightfox for providing context as to why exactly I am.
Who makes the laws?
It's not legal to live in your car in many places. No one cares about making sure that doesn't happen in any other context, and we shouldn't care when it's the sociopaths who make sure wages stay low for everyone else.
They could easily change the laws to make it legal in dc
I meant because Representatives and Senators have a bunch of special rules around mailing and mailing addresses. I'm sure there's another rule requiring them to have an actual residence in DC as well, not just a PO Box, for example.
Edit: Also you do realize that if politicians aren't paid well by the government then all of their money will come from the private sector right?
No one cares if anyone else can afford to maintain the minimum requirements for their job.
They already take bribes, and we already pay them too much. Every cent these pieces of shit earn that is greater than the minimum wage is an insult to everyone who works for a living in this country.
This is not true, they don't have to have a residence in DC. Also, the House only is in session about 4-5 hours per day, ~160 days a year and they aren't actually required to show up (they might not get reelected if they are skipping but voters rarely actually care)
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/report-cards/2022/house/missed-votes
With that kind of schedule I'd fucking commute or like many congressmen, I'd sleep in my office.
I stand corrected.
The staff aren't paid out of the members' pockets. They have a budget for running their offices.
Agree with your point, but man I didn't realize 60k was considered "scraping by" now