119th U.S. Congress: Good LORD what is Happening in There?

[Tyrath]

It would be never enough for the greedy parasites that are there right now. You guys are acting like they would love to do good but just can't fathom live on their cushy salary which they can continue to get even when they don't show up to do their job and get subsidized healthcare and pension for life.

[Sirious]

It's fun to watch them argue about it though, no?

It's all fundamentally broken, it really does need to be burned down and started from scratch. They do less and have more than 99.99% and it's still not enough. It's not a money problem, if you 10x their salary they'd still insider trade. Greed has no cap. There is no amount of money a person can get to and go, oh, no more money thanks, this is enough.

[Byrthnoth]

I don't think so? I'm saying that you don't get people willing to wade through the river of shit that is getting elected for a $174k/yr job where everyone hates you and only corruption gets done unless they are getting something on the back end. People that want to do good have better options along every dimension. Making the salary competitive and adding a bunch of rules to discourage corruption would be a step in the right direction towards recruiting people we would want in those jobs, at least.

[Karbuncle]

For once, I completely agree with Sirious('s previous post) on this one, and saying that $175,000 year + Amazing medical insurance + Pension isn't good enough screams "I make too much money to remember what its like to have an average income". Both of my brothers have what I would consider amazing jobs and they fund their lifestyle (and family) very well, and both of them only make around 70k a year plus benefits. One has a family whos wife also works so together they pull over $100k, but they have a very nice home and live very comfortably, able to afford even out of country, multi-week vacations with their kids and our mom relatively often. My youngest brother lives in a $350k home in one of the nicest parts of my Missouri. I know Missouri's cost of living is lower than somewhere like Cali or Washington so you can account for that.

For the vast majority of cities in the US, if you can't live comfortably on 175k thats a skill issue. I could live off $175k and have so much money to burn I'd be giving it away and still not know what to do with all the extra cash.

Now, that said, completely agree we need a fuckload of actually strict, enforceable and extremely punishing rules to prevent corruption and insider trading. I also agree that our current Election process heavily favors established people and those with significant income or Pacs at their disposal to out-advertise their opponents. I mean we could talk about the money barrier to entry, but on the topic of their income, I wouldn't mind if they got bumped to $200 or maybe $250 if it was to ensure the above strict anti-corruption laws with serious consequences for breaking them, but I think i saw $500 floated a page ago and that is insane.

And I also don't think for a second just giving them more money will fix the issue, it simply will not, if we give them $500k a year and extremely strict regulation overhauls, the only thing pulling any weight there are the regulation overhauls.

I also think an exorbitant princely Fat fucking paycheck shouldn't be the enticement for people to run for public offices, feel like we'd just be attracting the wrong type of folks who already have the greed issue.

[Sirious]

Making the job more appealing doesn't invite better candidates. And the rules are largely unenforceable.

The whole system is broken. Like every aspect. At every tier. In every category. Of every sector. It's just corruption all the way down.

....You would have to literally remove them from society. Completely. No phone. No internet. No interviews. No human contact period. No assistants. No possible way to divulge economic information. So they can't take bribes and their sole purpose in life would be improve gov and society that they can no longer take part in.

OH! Bonus. Cut off from society they can't have sex with or eat children anymore. Both sides happy!

[Zealot]

You're all ignoring the obvious solution of paying them an hourly rate instead of salary and installing a manager to monitor their productivity.

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[Byrthnoth]

Here's a website to check if you want comps in a metro area: https://www.levels.fyi/

People that are willing to debase themselves begging for millions of dollars campaign donations aren't doing it for the compensation of a mid-career professional doing contracting knowledge work (for 2 or 6 years).

Like, imagine if one of the Missouri senate candidates just straight up embezzled 5% of their primary campaign funds Santos-style. That would have been >1M in 2024 in fucking Missouri. What if they got elected and only redirected 0.001% of the federal budget to some pet project and took a mere 5% on that? That would have been 3.5M last year. The amount of money these people are moving is huge. They should probably be paid at least as well as a partner at a major law firm or McKinsey makes, considering most of them seem to be lawyers or do consulting afterwards. That's up around 1M/yr.

Give them a proctological audit every year and make the results public, but don't pretend that you're going to lure qualified people into these jobs when they could use the same skills, work half as hard, and make 10x the money. It's no wonder that we have political ideologs, corrupt jackasses, and dubiously sane cranks. Who else would do this job?

[Karbuncle]

Here's a website to check if you want comps in a metro area: https://www.levels.fyi/

People that are willing to debase themselves begging for millions of dollars campaign donations aren't doing it for the compensation of a mid-career professional doing contracting knowledge work (for 2 or 6 years).

Like, imagine if one of the Missouri senate candidates just straight up embezzled 5% of their primary campaign funds Santos-style. That would have been >1M in 2024 in fucking Missouri. What if they got elected and only redirected 0.001% of the federal budget to some pet project and took a mere 5% on that? That would have been 3.5M last year. The amount of money these people are moving is huge. They should probably be paid at least as well as a partner at a major law firm or McKinsey makes, considering most of them seem to be lawyers or do consulting afterwards. That's up around 1M/yr.

Give them a proctological audit every year and make the results public, but don't pretend that you're going to lure qualified people into these jobs when they could use the same skills, work half as hard, and make 10x the money. It's no wonder that we have political ideologs, corrupt jackasses, and dubiously sane cranks. Who else would do this job?

The job is attracting insanely corrupt ideologues because of the enticing money they could be making from the corruption, and you think paying them more money will suddenly attract good people? If paying good money attracted good people then *gestures vaguely at Investment Bankers* you know? Like the kind of people who go into the job for the wealth benefits aren't going to be any better than the ones we currently have who are likely there also for the wealth benefits aka insider trading. You'd just be enticing the same type of person with an already admittedly less profitable, but more legal version of wealth?

Do you really think there are people out there who think "I really want to change the world for the better, improve the lives of my children and neighbors, but not for $175k and amazing healthcare+benefits a year lol fuck this country pffblbbltbt".

Again we agree on severe corruption punishments, but making the salary a primary attraction for the position isn't going to fix the corruption, it'll just make the fat payouts more legal, and unless said salary was also making up for the likely millions they make from corruption, they wont be happy with the downsizing anyway, assuming we could even get them to pass regulations on themselves. Enough wouldnt be enough.

I guess what I'm asking is realistically what salary do you think they should take home? If you've answered it, sorry, repeat it for me just incase your mind has changed any.

[Byrthnoth]

Yah totally and those dudes driving Armored Vehicles transporting money, think of it, if they just STOLE the money they transported they wouldn't need a job anymore.

Also you're admitting that the job is attracting insanely corrupt ideologues and you think paying them more money will suddenly attract good people? If paying good money attracted good people then *gestures vaguely at Investment Bankers* you know? Like the kind of people who go into the job for the wealth benefits aren't going to be any better than the ones CURRENTLY GOING INTO THE JOB FOR THE WEALTH BENEFITS AKA FUCKING INSIDER TRADING jesus.

If you paid a salary competitive with what they can get in the normal job market without doing crimes, there's a chance you wouldn't filter out the ones that don't want to do crimes. I'm not sure what's confusing about this.

If someone told me I could replace a sitting Republican House member after the next election without having to kiss any babies, I'd want do it because the job is important and any R->D seat puts us that much closer to sane governance. However, I'd need to talk to my wife about it because I'd be taking a pay cut for the mission, effectively leaving my professional field forever, and likely torpedoing my lifetime earning potential. For two years in the House? It's at least not a clear-cut call.

[Karbuncle]

If you paid a salary competitive with what they can get in the normal job market without doing crimes, there's a chance you wouldn't filter out the ones that don't want to do crimes. I'm not sure what's confusing about this.

I guess whats confusing is you really believe this. That the only reason(or nay even a reason at all) we don't have good representatives in our House and Senate is because the Paycheck isnt big enough.

I personally think its because positions of power attract a specific type of person who likely want to USE that power, rather its for money or influence, and that the election system itself weeds out anyone who doesn't have access to wealth and influence already, squashing the folks who might be able to make a difference but dont have the right connections or funds. The position itself will naturally attract people who want to abuse it, and those that don't are weeded out before landing the job.

If anything I'm understanding you a bit better. Learning that you make more than $175k a year and that you'd run for office if not for the loss of earnings, not painting this is a bad light, just tells me you're very money motivated, and I'm beginning to understand where you're arguing from if nothing else.

[Byrthnoth]

I didn't say low salary was the only problem. Low salary + functionally no oversight + corruption being built into the norms + other antiquated social norms + unreasonable staffing + rank incompetence are all problems.

However, you have to choose what problem you want to correct. Admitting that they should be paid more if they did the real job is at least an incentive to fix the other stuff (at the same time).

[Karbuncle]

Admitting that they should be paid more if they did the real job is at least an incentive to fix the other stuff (at the same time).

But I'm saying, and I think I agree to some extent on the concept you're proposing but not so much the results, by all estimates they're making MILLIONS from corruption and insider trading, I doubt theres a pay bump reasonable enough to satisfy that level of corruption, I get thats why you say regulations at the same time and yeah I think that would weed out some of the corrupt politicians currently there (maybe?), BUT, I also don't believe these people are insider trading because they need it to make ends meet, I think they're abusing that power because its why they took the job, power. Banning and enacting strict punishments for this kind of corruption I think would weed out a lot of the bad actors and open the door for people who are getting into the job for the right reasons, I suppose a pay raise would just be a pat on the back for those who stay.

Also Byrth I know you make a princely salary but seriously, back down here in normal-person land where like 80% of the American population resides, $175k/year+Amazing beneifts is an insanely enticing package especially considering they're still telling us to shut the fuck up about $15/hour Minimum wages, like seriously? And the amount of work you think they do is a little confusing to me because most of these house/senate don't go out of their way that much man, some of them are like 80 years old and a huge amount of their work outside of sitting in the House on their phone is done by Interns or Aids. Turtle Mitch barely knew where he was and stroked out on TV like 3 times, we had one lady in a nursing home with Amnesia, the ones who are corrupt are doing the least work I'd argue unless you count hustling the stock market as hard work. Also most don't face public ire or are household names to hate, a lot of these people fly under the radar and just do their job.

Also to clarify not saying I'm completely against a pay package raise for them, but it'd definitely, as you say, have to come with the strict regulations on insider trading, and it would have to be reasonable. I mean as I mentioned above, these fuckers tell us to kick rocks when we bring up Minimum wage or Healthcare, I don't think selling "3x or higher raises" for them is going to be anything but political suicide.

[Karbuncle]

Also, possibly double posting but didn't want to throw this in an edit and risk you missing it, don't you think that by ending corruption but drastically increasing their pay, you might encourage some of those corrupted who would have otherwise left the position to stick around for the power because the pay is good enough to offset leaving the job for more corruption money? Like if hypothetically we increased their pay from 175 to 500/year, some of those we may have weeded out with anti-corruption laws who were only in it for the $$ might stick around just to keep the power they have and deal with the lose of corruption money or find more clever ways to hide it.

[Tyrath]

Instead of focusing on actual problems to fix, Byr wants to reward their greed. I don't think we will see eye to eye on this.

[kuronosan]

I would posit that one of the primary reasons congress is a garbage fire is because we don’t pay them enough. Paying people shit while going on about how they should honored to be underpaid public servants is what we do in education, and I think we can see the results of that policy literally everywhere around us.

Right now they go to congress to build up a contact list they can use to get paid appropriately per the market economy once they retire; imagine a world where we paid congress that money to begin with?

We don't pay them enough? Do you know what their total compensation package is?

There are lines of professions that should be paid more than they do with better benefits that are still wrapping around the corner of the "come here if you deserve better compensation" store.

No other service job votes themselves pay increases for doing what is relatively less work, with lifelong benefits, with incredible health care, vacation, and with access to lobbyists, and it's not even close.

I'm fucking comfortable and people think doctors should make less money for more work, and somehow people think government officials are the ones that deserve pay increases for theoretically being shit on over nurses who actually get shit on.

Teachers. Fucking teachers.

That line of people who really should be paid more to go into their fields is well ahead of where "congressperson" is.

[Tymon]

Not to mention an essential guarantee of future employment in the private sector for life, if you do decide to leave office.

[arus2001]

I'll also challenge the notion these jobs are "hard" when we have people 60+ doing them. Working an oil rig is hard. Digging a ditch is hard. Sitting in a room with your peers for a few hours every few months while your interns did all the busy work screams absolutely cushy to me.

[Meresgi]

Representatives weren't supposed to get paid at all, it was supposed to be a civic duty. They aren't paid too "little". They make on average $174k...for doing nothing. And then reap in ton of extra $$ and benefits and insider trading etc etc. The sheer fact they're bad that fucking well for doing literally nothing is why it attracts parasites with 0 skill and who just want to lounge around on the tax payer dime for decades while shitting their diapers and not understanding what they are voting on. These jobs are not hard...CEO jobs are not hard. The higher up you go in pay the less you actually do in terms of hard work in almost every sector. Majority of my family has worked in leather mills all their life. Half of them have lost fingers or limbs due to conditions. I think the highest earner of them makes $55k/yr and most average around $30-45k after 20+yrs of back breaking labor.

Only congress people who are working hard are folks like Fetterman because it takes a lot of work to be that fucking stupid. I don't believe it's natural talent

[Tyrath]

[Outlaw]

These jobs are not hard...CEO jobs are not hard. The higher up you go in pay the less you actually do in terms of hard work in almost every sector. Majority of my family has worked in leather mills all their life. Half of them have lost fingers or limbs due to conditions. I think the highest earner of them makes $55k/yr and most average around $30-45k after 20+yrs of back breaking labor.

This right here.

Most of my family and relatives are the same. Worked in factories or mills their whole life. My Dad worked at DuPont. He worked around heavy machinery and was exposed to asbestos for some years when he first worked there. And when I say exposed I mean asbestos dust in the air!! They were not told. Also no masks or protection of any kind. It's a damn miracle he didn't get cancer.

My Mom was a bit luckyer. She worked as a PA (Physicians Assistant) in surgery. But only becauce my grandmother and aunt busted their asses to send her to school. But don't get the wrong idea. This was not a cushy job. It was backbreaking and extremely stressful at times according to her. They worked the nurses, techs, etc. like dogs. She had to go always before the sun came up, sometimes work a 12 hour shift, come back home, and 5 minutes later.. the phone rings and had to go back. Oh and also she was seriously injured by a couple surgeons because of their incompetenence. She still has the scars.