I 100% agree, if you'd take a bribe at $174k as a civil servant then you'd take a bribe at any price point. Raising pay doesn't stop corruption, at best it just raises the price a bit. Trump was supposedly selling pardons for $2 million, he issued 143 pardons (let's say he was only paid on 10% of those). That's $28 million in bribes.
If we have to match the bribes to stop corruption then $28 million times 535 members of Congress is $15 billion.
One problem is that they're legally required to have two residences, one in their district, and another one in DC
They are not required to have a residence in DC, many members of Congress sleep in their offices to save money. There's nothing saying they couldn't commute to work.
Also, the House only meets for 4-5 hours, approximately 160 days a year, and they regularly skip sessions.
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.
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 think that federal wages should be supplemented by state pay to account for high cost of living states and counties.
$175k may not be a high wage in areas of California, but in most parts of the country it's enough to outright buy a house and live very very well.
California has a cost of living problem
17 does not equal droves
Hey Dude, I doubt anyone is going to have any hard feelings about this and maybe it will prompt Jonah to bring some others on board. Either way I feel like this sort of post (at least at our size) needs some sort of validation and response. Good luck to you and hope to see you around.
This has been my guess from the beginning, the only logical final objective solution was annexation. If you're gonna drive everyone living there out and level the landscape it's obvious you don't intend for the original people to come back. I said this back in the beginning of November, come 2025 Gaza will just be a normal annexed portion of Israel.
A big part of it is reporting requirements, despite what some people think different portions of the government have different requirements. The reason a person gets inquiries about Venmo payments is because the IRS requires corporations to report that information to them and it's a mainly automated process.
Regulatory reporting requirements of Corporations to the IRS can't be copy pasted onto Pentagon spending reconciliation.
A better comparison, that is still not accurate, would be a cash business that has to report income to the IRS and has trouble getting granular details organized.
Complaints about transparency and accountability on the Pentagon budget are a valid complaint, but this is a poor example.
I don't know about abandoned, but I joined it during the migration and mainly just for a home for my account. I rarely see much content on this instance, but that's also kind of okay.
Yeah and I saw a recent post saying that roughly 66% of Millennials would like to buy if it were affordable for them.
Rental experiences all come down to the details, how expensive is it, what extra costs (can you have pets) and benefits (do you have laundry in the rental or is it a shared space), is public transportation more accessible, etc.
Back when I rented my washing machine broke and the rental company had a new one installed the same day, the bus route went right up to my building, and the Greenway trail was adjacent to the complex. They decided to increase rent by $100 so I looked at buying a house and found a condo I could afford. The condo was $300 cheaper (including the HOA fee) than the new rent, but the bus didn't come to where my condo was, the Greenway trail was 10 min road biking away, and when the HOA decided we had to install new lights and doors I had to pay for that (luckily I was able to do the labor myself, but a lot of people couldn't). Before I sold and moved the HOA was about to replace the roof on my building and we would have all had to pay out of pocket our portion (which equated to approximately 3.75x what I paid for the mortgage and HOA fee, so an extra 3.75 months worth of payments).
Also, a lot of places have more or less protections for renters which can impact things.
You are absolutely correct, but it still requires making calls, coordinating with a handyman, being available when they come by, etc. It's the same logic for why some landlords hire property managers. If being a landlord is so easy you'd think they wouldn't need to hire someone to specifically manage their properties.
I am not fundamentally against giving Congress a pay raise, their last pay raise was in 2009 and it's probably time to give them a cost of living adjustment. I'm not opposed to giving Congress a pay raise to encourage a wider range or people to run in the hope that we can have better Congressmen. There are Congressmen who come from already expensive areas where $174,000 isn't a lot (such as AOC) and so they may need more pay. Washington is an expensive place and so are the surrounding areas, there is an argument that they need high pay to run their house in their home state and pay for expenses in DC.
The problem I have is with the argument that paying Congress more would either help eliminate corruption or that Congressmen can make more money working somewhere else.
The first paragraph of arguments is a real discussion and should be solved. Patrick McHenry doesn't fit that criteria. $174k is a very good wage in his district and a quick search of some public records shows he has owned multiple properties and even owns a separate lake property as well.
So if living very comfortably, almost lavishly in comparison to the people in his district, isn't enough then what is? What is the lifestyle expectation for a Congressman? I personally don't think a Congressional job should be about making people wealthy. If this isn't enough then nothing would be.