Just make inside trading and taking corporate and foreign Pac bribes illegal for them.
Currently these two rules alone are why they rig laws for corportations and big pharma and insurance and oil companies, weapon manufaturers, banks, israel… they work for everyone but the citizens… And that some fucking how is legal and practiced in the open by both Democrats and Conservatives alike
Make Congress Earn Average American Wage.
Submitted 1 day ago by sanitation@lemmy.today to workreform@lemmy.world
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Comments
answersplease77@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
lemmy_outta_here@lemmy.world 2 hours ago
This is where the real money is, and this is the real source of corruption; their salary is not the problem. In fact, I think the salary should be high enough that normal people will still be interested in the difficult and ugly game of politics. I wouldn’t run for office for less money than I make at my job - I have bills to pay.
I think they should be barred altogether from making stock trades while in office. Maybe their portfolios could go into a blind trusts (or index funds or something) so that they cannot make insider trades. Likewise for their partners and close family.
Manipulating the stock market is the principal motivation behind Trump’s trade and foreign policy. The same can probably be said about many Democrat and Republican congresspeople. Allowing this obscenity is the single greatest weakness of the American political system.
lightnsfw@reddthat.com 1 hour ago
I have a solution. Come up with actual Qol metrics for the average American, check them every 3 months, if they go down a congressman is selected at random for execution.
DoctorWhoDMC@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
Sounds good on paper, until you notice this means… only the wealthy would ever bother running for office.
ProdigiousInsanity@lemmus.org 5 hours ago
That’s true already
DoctorWhoDMC@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
Right. So it wouldn’t change anything.
tazeycrazy@feddit.uk 5 hours ago
That’s the theory behind pensions for most public offices and the police. To remove the temptation for corruption in office… not that it works
turdas@suppo.fi 1 day ago
The usual argument against this is that the less politicians earn, the easier they are to bribe.
ceenote@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Politicians will be happy to take bribes regardless of what they earn.
yakko@feddit.uk 1 day ago
At least until campaign finance is fixed. Citizens United has fully instituted political bribery as a matter of course
binarytobis@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I’ll never get over how cheap it is to buy politicians. They make so much money, then they can be made to vote for a genocide for $3000.
Goodeye8@piefed.social 20 hours ago
Which is why taking away their salary punishes honest politicians more than corrupt ones.
oce@jlai.lu 1 day ago
As an intermediate solution, you can define it as X times the median, so they still have incentive to raise the median.
Ek-Hou-Van-Braai@piefed.social 1 day ago
This is the way, and they aren’t allowed to buy any stocks, only ETF’s
SlurpingPus@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
My argument is, what am I supposed to be entertained by, if the number of USian political posts is brought down to zero?
Jhex@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I know you are right, that is what they claim. Having said that, 25 years of naked corruption should be enough, even for Americans, to realize they have been lied to
sh00g@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
Or even if you take the bribery angle out of it, the less politicians earn, the less it incentivizes working class people from going into government because they need the money. The net result is you end up ruled by the wealthy (including those who will advocate for pay decreases for congresspeople, which just worsens the problem).
arrow74@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
Also low compensation makes it nearly impossible for the average person to run an office, live in DC, and maintain a home in their home district.
I’d be okay if they recieved some kind of voucher or stipend that can only be used on a lease in DC and office necessities. Just to make up the difference
Earthwormjim91@lemmy.world 23 hours ago
Just build dorms for Congress. There are only around 540 of them, including the non-voting members from PR and DC.
You could make a very nice apartment building for Congress for less than we spend on a lot of other shit. Remove all the extra costs for maintaining two residencies. Travel is already an extra stipend. So is food.
awfulawful@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 day ago
Or that you just make politics into something only for the independently wealthy. This is especially true at the state and local level where positions are often part time. The result is often those with the power to make their own schedules (landlords, lawyers, trust fund kids, etc.) make up a disproportionate amount of elected officials. You’ll get some people who are passionate enough to give up the rest of their lives, but not enough.
UnpledgedCatnapTipper@piefed.blahaj.zone 20 hours ago
The biggest argument against it is they need to maintain 2 residences and travel back and forth from their district to DC. If they’re not paid enough to do that, only the wealthy and corrupt could ever be in congress.
Snapz@lemmy.world 1 day ago
But the usual rational response is, if what they earn is never enough for the blind pursuit of more, than they will always, “make less” in their minds and justify abuse of their positions.
This city needs an enema…
Earthwormjim91@lemmy.world 23 hours ago
So you set the congressional pay at a high level, and ban all other sources of income. Any securities must be placed in a blind trust for the duration of service.
Malica@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
That’s what the FBI and clearance is for
gmtom@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
Might be unpopular be politicians should actually be paid a lot. You want to attract actually skilled and capable people after all
But it should also be there only source of income, no speaking gigs, no stock trades, no side business
veni_vedi_veni@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
One of the reasons a lot of government positions track if you have debts is that propensity to financial burdens make politicians more suceptible to corruption.
If you pay them less, they are actually going to be more easily bribed.
Lemminary@lemmy.world 18 hours ago
If you pay them less, they are actually going to be more easily bribed.
If you keep the same people in office, then yeah. I wonder who else would be up for the job if the pay was lower. Hopefully more Mamdanis.
CultLeader4Hire@lemmy.world 17 hours ago
I’d agree with you except we see politicians selling out for even tiny amounts while having tens of millions in the bank. If you’re willing to sell the food out of the mouths of the poor for $2,500 and you’ve got 12 mil in the bank your inherently corrupt and having a big paycheck won’t change that. They have billionaire brain rot, number go up syndrome, as long as number goes up that’s all that matters no matter how much they are given or have.
Soleos@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
These people are massively advantaged with the current campaign system/rules.
njm1314@lemmy.world 17 hours ago
No. You see the tiny tip of the iceberg in payments. There is always a ton more beneath the surface.
deft@lemmy.wtf 12 hours ago
It’s also actually a means to prevent corruption unfortunately. Less likely to take ridiculous sums if you’re financially solid
YouTalkinToMe@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
I think it is much more important what they are using that skill for.
Azal@pawb.social 15 hours ago
Live in Missouri. Our state legislature liked to for years vote down a pay raise for themselves. They made sure to stand up and wave “Look at how good we’re doing.”
If I wanted to run for legislature, I would have had to taken a cut in pay and I am definitely not on the top 50% of the state, much less the country.
Hueristic_Autistic@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
Ughhhh? Again I hate to hate on people who did good in life. You step up your game and find a profession that can earn you above that wage as well as pay off the student loan which if you don’t choose the minimal w/the longest time to pay it off, with a ridiculous apr, you won’t be trapped in a financial hole.
inmatarian@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
I think you should have to pay 2% more overall in taxes per year on everything city, state and federal once you make over 120k$
Yep, the US Federal income tax (and many states’ income taxes) are already a progressive tax that separate income into brackets and taxes each bracket at an increasing rate. It’s definitely time to increase that top marginal rate and add a bunch of exclusions that rich people use to hide their money in capital gains.
5318008@lemmy.ml 3 hours ago
You gotta step up your game and find a profession that can earn you above that wage
Above median salary? What about the fact that, by definition, 50% of people won’t be able to do that?
Okay, okay, so wages rise over time, and eventually 99% of people are making anove 66k… but then the new median will be, like, 150k, and everything in society will be priced accordingly, and some other person will have the great advice that “You gotta step up your game and find a profession that can earn you above that wage” again ignoring the fact that, by definition, 50% of people cannot do that.
No. The solution is not to tell people to work harder. At the bare minimum for this conversation, we should ensure that people making median income have a good quality of life. At the bare minimum for an ethical society, wages would not be the metric that determines whether someone deserves a good quality of life.
Hueristic_Autistic@lemmy.world 2 hours ago
Ever thinl that the 50% that can do it should while they can before etbat kind of hyper inflation happens and like maybe boost the morale with advice on how not to trap yourself in a predatory ass loan or give a list of things you did to achieve your goals that got you into a position where you feel financially comfortable.
I mean shit I’m on food stamps but I found a goal that’s gonna make me bank and is less than 2 years plus I can pay it off in 2 years on a payment plan. I’m gonna be making six figures in less than 5 years. I am more than happy. I’m stepping up my fucking game.
Impractical_Island@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
Nah. Get rid of the numbers. No money, no problem, amirite? Just make willpower and do what you do best! That’s the supererogatory of self. Old men plant trees they don’t ever see the shade of, y’know? Simple shit to restructure your reality around, if you cared.
Hueristic_Autistic@lemmy.world 2 hours ago
Nahhh, I’m not for total get rid of everything but a restructuring of society couldn’t hurt… The common man, 😉
It’ll ruin the superduper rich but the conman man would love a societal restructuring.
roboflop@feddit.uk 6 hours ago
Early retirement, absolutely.
With regards to politicians wages, I think they should be commensurate with the responsibilities of the job. But they should have no other means of income during their term, and potentially for a period afterwards. There would need to be much more stringent auditing and enforcement to ensure this.
Politicians engaging I’m outside employment seems crazy to me, and is clearly a route to corruption.
Muffi@programming.dev 6 hours ago
What responsibilities? Most people just assume there are responsibilities and consequences, turns are out there isn’t. The newest episode of Some More News is about exactly this.
devedeset@lemmy.zip 10 hours ago
If members of Congress earn the average or median wage, that will ensure that only the rich can actually hold that position. Very, very few non-rich people would take that risk.
nullroot@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
And it will only encourage lobbying, insider trader, and every other corrupt money making bullshit they still do with what they earn.
pachrist@lemmy.world 23 hours ago
I have always heard people make this argument, and since it’s Great British Bake-off time, I’ll use it as the example.
There’s no prize, and the pay per episode is fairly minimal. Less than $500/episode for contestants. Plus, they get ~$2000 stipend for ingredients. On the fly converting pounds to dollars, so these are guesstimates.
What that means is that Great British Bake-off does not find the best home baker in Britain, it finds the best baker who can afford to take time off to be on the show. If you can afford to miss school, work, or being a parent for 12 weeks, you can’t compete.
Same applies here.
If you can’t afford to live on the salary, you’ll only get people in office who don’t need the salary. We already get that to some extent with campaigning costs. This could make it worse. The barrier of entry is higher.
Instead, we need a performance review with real consequences other than “Guess I don’t get re-elected, but I still get a book deal.”
hildegarde@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 day ago
Median is a better choice as its less affected by outliers.
The mean average is the amount you compute by putting all the money that is earned and put it in a big pot and divide it up evenly amongst everyone.
Median is where you find the single most average person and ask how much they make.
Median gives them an incentive to improve the income of the average American. Mean average gives an incentive to increase national wealth regardless of who’s hands its in, and an incentive to decrease the population. That is not a good incentive.
But also keep in mind congress members are local representatives. They need to be in DC while in session, and in their state or district at other times to be available to their constituents. The job requires maintaining two households, so they should earn enough for that. Unless we provide them college dorm level mandatory housing in the capital. Then median alone is enough.
SippyCup@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I get that you’re trying to be accurate, and I respect that.
Let’s use the mean, and eliminate the top and bottom 1% of earners. Which would put Congress’ salary between 57,000 and 61,000
Using the median gives them a salary of 87,500 dollars.
That top 1% is a real motherfucker.
Earthwormjim91@lemmy.world 23 hours ago
$87,500 is the median household income.
Median personal income (income of all persons 15+ with any amount of income) is $46,960.
jaybone@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
For the bottom 1%, I assume this includes the unemployed as making $0?
And for the billionaire class, if we are talking AGI here (which I assume we are) I’m guessing they have some entirely normal AGI. If they are paying anything on their actual wealth it’s probably through some kind of capital gains tax, or hidden in some trust or shell corporation.
So before eliminating top 1% and bottom 1%, we might want to clarify those items, as the “average” worker will mainly just have a non-zero AGI they are taxed on.
hildegarde@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 day ago
Eliminating the top 1% of earners is a good policy I support, but I don’t think it makes sense as a way to calculate averages.
Though your proposal might work now, in the fullness of time things will change, and the 1% may not be the right number. I don’t think you can rely on governments to update numbers promptly. There are places in England that have fines in law defined in denominations that no longer exist. You can’t rely on governments keep things up to date.
But your doesn’t address the underlying problems with using the arethmetic mean. It seems like you’re just searching for justification to pay people you don’t like less.
I believe everyone should be able to live comfortably, and well designed incentive systems are effective at shaping behavior. Median is better on both fronts.
tatterdemalion@programming.dev 9 hours ago
Better yet, bring back the ancient Greek lottery for state office.
Tomato666@lemmy.sdf.org 6 hours ago
Yes, but a competency test is essential. 50% of the population are below average intelligence.
ChairmanMeow@programming.dev 5 hours ago
Sounds like an improvement over the current US congress already.
Formfiller@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
And no money from lobbyists, no insider trading and no ability to award contracts to private entities
melsaskca@lemmy.ca 6 hours ago
But then we wouldn’t get “the best people”. /s
FukOui@lemmy.zip 9 hours ago
I agree with the retirement age part, but I’m conflicted about the regular wage part.
If gov members work for a “regular” wage, then what would be their incentive in public service vs other jobs. Or what’s stopping them from working a regular wage and then side hustle as the billionaires’ lap dog (not that different now tbh).
karlhungus@lemmy.ca 3 hours ago
Good will seems to work for teachers and nurses. Problem is more money would likely come from other sources (bribes, lobbying, that sort of thing)
CrabAndBroom@lemmy.ml 3 hours ago
In that case, I suspect it’s just a law enforcement issue. By which I mean, what would happen to a nurse or a doctor who ignored triage and took personal bribes to ensure certain people receive help first, while leaving other people who need more urgent help to die? That’s what should be happening to politicians too IMO.
FukOui@lemmy.zip 3 hours ago
Yeah. Like why would I work for a shit paying but powerful job, unless I have some ulterior motives. Good Samaritans exist but they’re a dime a dozen.
FurryMemesAccount@lemmy.blahaj.zone 13 hours ago
MEDIAN wage. No rich to skew things.
MehBlah@lemmy.world 17 hours ago
My thoughts on that was they got paid the average pay for the state the live in. Down here in the south they would have to get food stamps.
chewypoops@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Just checking the room here, y’all know that Congress doesn’t control things like private pensions, 401Ks, or average wages, right? You’re blaming Congress for the blight of capitalism.
They also don’t take that large of a salary. The actual issue is that they are allowed to do insider trading and make an undeserved fortune investing…
But pretending that all of these problems are just problems with how the laws are written is just ignoring the actual source of these problems.
redditStinksSuperBad@lemmy.world 1 day ago
“y’all know that Congress doesn’t control things like private pensions, 401Ks, or average wages, right?”
This is wrong on so many levels.
Smoogs@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Even then it’s about who is enforcing our checking it.
All this inside trading is supposedly illegal to be doing whole in Congress but there it be happening.
No one blinks.
And a president claiming to go for third term.
And people are getting this as an actual threat that could happen.
So who is pumping the brakes here? Looks like a whole lotta ppl going “well it looks good on paper” and then doing a whole lotta nothing after waiving said paper around.
Fredthefishlord@lemmy.blahaj.zone 20 hours ago
Private pensions is in fact something that has frequently been legislated on
AdolfSchmitler@lemmy.world 1 day ago
And getting paid $250k for being a “guest speaker” sonewhere when it’s really just a bribe. Even if congress weren’t paid any salary they would still make bank from other sources of revenue.
Its like how DJT took a “$1 presidential salary” or whatever but has made billions doing other things.
Scrogu@lemmy.zip 19 hours ago
Would be fine with them earning a multiple of minimum wage so when they raise their salary they raise the minimum.
devedeset@lemmy.zip 10 hours ago
Alternatively: tie the minimum wage to inflation. Some US states do this.
Scrogu@lemmy.zip 3 hours ago
It’s too easy to use an inflation measure which is not accurate.
Lemminary@lemmy.world 18 hours ago
Add more term limits. You serve two terms and you’re out, no exceptions. I’ll even lend you a Mexican saying: “Sufragio efectivo no reelección”
IMALlama@lemmy.world 17 hours ago
Michigan has term limits. It has not worked out well. It makes lobbying way easier, since the lawmakers aren’t very effective earlier in their career. You also wind up with two casts of politians: those who want to be public servants and are forced to run for a different office to keep good on the table and those who are already well heeled. We don’t need the second category in politics.
Lemminary@lemmy.world 16 hours ago
I looked up Michigan’s term limits which is 12 years, which is honestly very long, so it led me to searching about corruption and here’s what I found:
- Cross-state variation in U.S. term-limit regimes is used to estimate the opposing incidence and magnitude effects of term limits on corruption.
- The penultimate effect of term limits increases corruption frequency by about 28 %.
- The magnitude effect, stemming from shorter tenures, reduces the average cost of corruption.
- Stricter term limits are associated with lower overall corruption.
- Term limits thus serve as an institutional safeguard against political corruption.
It is well established that lame-duck incumbents tend to be less accountable (Besley and Case, 1995, 2003), hence more prone to corruption, and Tsur (2022) showed that penultimate terms reinforce this effect. […] Corrupt activities typically require close and trusted relationships between the public officials involved in the malfeasance and the private actors offering bribes. This intimacy and trust do not develop overnight, but require time to cultivate. […] Consequently, such corrupt networks are often built gradually through repeated interactions, shared secrets, and a history of successful illicit transactions.
DagwoodIII@piefed.social 1 day ago
No.
The only reform we need is to take money out of politics.
If you get X number of people to sign your petition, you get y dollars to spend on a campaign. The spending is well monitored, so the candidate can’t buy themselves a Lambo and call it a legit expense.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 11 hours ago
tell that to the silent generation and boomers in congress, mitch, chuck greasley, chuck schumer,etc.
tburkhol@slrpnk.net 1 day ago
Always fascinates me that the knee jerk solution to ‘government service sucks’ is ‘pay the service providers less.’
I like the idea of tying congressional compensation to median or minimum wage, so they’re motivated to improve that statistic (although Goodhart’s law), but it’s got to be enough to compete with other jobs with similar level of responsibility & authority. Median income jobs include K-8 teachers, tax prep, social work, & occupational safety; congress is basically the country’s board of directors, and S&P 500 directors average around $300k, or 4.5x median.
The real problem with congress is it’s so easy to funnel nearly unlimited money to politicians’ control - it may not be salary, and there may be restrictions, but campaign donations provide an awful lot of opportunities for diversion. Massive campaign & campaign finance reforms, in ways that would probably set SCOTUS into a rage, be a real step toward making congress more accountable to the 90%.
stickyprimer@lemmy.world 23 hours ago
This would mean that the job would only appeal to two kinds of people: those earning below the average wage, or the very rich who don’t care what the job pays.
I’m all for low-earning folks getting a raise by running for Congress, but the problem is that anyone above average wage will see this as a pay cut. And the higher end of wage earners are the more highly educated, skilled, and experienced people.
Even if Congressional wages seem high now, most well qualified professionals can still earn way more in the private sector.
DreamlandLividity@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Ah yes, the one job where you have to spend months campaining, puting up your own money for ads, be hated by part of your community no matter what you do and smeared in the media with poor chances of even get the job should pay the average wage and benefits. Because that is how you attract honest people who are fine just with the salary, as opposed to the ones who want to steal everything not bolted down.
Stupid ass takes like this is why so many people outside these community see socialist as moronic clowns.
flandish@lemmy.world 1 day ago
no. we should:
- make them not have a connection at all to any trade in stocks
- serve a maximum of four years, total, across all “terms”
- not allow for legacy ppl to fill in when they leave early
- force them to retire at <natl retirement age> here
- force them to pay for their own healthcare
- and finally: imprison them for life should they be seen taking bribes, materially supporting genocide (including in israel), and breaking any other laws.
tough shit.
chunes@lemmy.world 21 hours ago
Average? Hell no. At least have the kindness to stipulate median. And really, it should be the minimum.
SacralPlexus@lemmy.world 1 day ago
This has been tried before and the result is that only rich people can afford to run for office. Is that really what you want?
iuseasahibtw@ani.social 20 hours ago
401K’s were never meant for retirement. They were initially meant to provide tax perks for executive level employees for their profit sharing bonuses.
They were never meant to replace pensions or be used as a retirement vehicle.
Financial advisors and banks pushed them on regular employees because they fell out of favor with executives in favor or better options.
401Ks are not a good option for regular people. General investment in ETFs or a diversified dividend portfolio and t bonds is much better.
Psythik@lemmy.world 18 hours ago
Where can I find a job that pays that much? I’ve never passed a $40K salary in my life.
Darkonion@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
You’d need to enforce no income from other sources also. Before, during, and after. Significant monitoring of extended family and personal connections. Should those things be monitored for corruption under their current salary?
If proper funding for journalism and watchdog organisations, or judicial bodies designed to serve the people’s interests, hadn’t already been dismantled or drowned out in the din of other voices it might be possible. Those systems/funding could be restored and the competing intrests spewing lies culled or limited. It is not impossible, but it will be hard. Attend in-person forums if you can tolerate it. Speak and lead if you can. Make connections.
qbus@lemmy.world 23 minutes ago
They should also have to use the VA for health insurance