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Should we pay Government officials more and/or limit them to one term?

Should we pay government officials and/or limit them to one term?

  • Both; We should pay government officials more and we should limit them to one term

    Votes: 1 6.3%
  • We should pay government officials more, but we shouldn't change the current term system

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • We should limit government officials to one term, but we shouldn't pay them more

    Votes: 4 25.0%
  • Neither; paying them more and limiting them to one term are both horrible ideas

    Votes: 11 68.8%

  • Total voters
    16

duhu

Member
Joined
Sep 18, 2012
Messages
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Location
Ohio
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Political Leaning
Libertarian
I read a good article from Thomas Sowell, an economist, philosopher, and author, and senior fellow at the Hoover Institute. In the article, he makes the argument that it might be better to pay our government officials more, as well as limiting terms (preferably to one). I highly recommend reading the article before voting.

Now that the National Football League has apparently learned that it can be costly to hire cheap officials, perhaps the rest of us should learn the same lesson when it comes to government officials, whose bad calls can do a lot more damage.

What do we do when we want a better car, a better home or a better bottle of wine? We pay more for it. We definitely need a lot better crop of public officials. Yet we insist on paying flea market prices for people who will be spending trillions of tax dollars, not to mention making foreign policy that can either safeguard or jeopardize the lives of millions of Americans.

Any successful engineer, surgeon, or financier would have to take a big pay cut to serve in Congress. A top student from a top law school can get a starting salary that is more than we pay a Supreme Court justice.

No doubt many, if not most, government officials are already paid more than they are worth. But the whole point of higher pay is to get better people to replace them.

We may say that we want people in Congress, the courts or the White House who have some serious knowledge and experience in the real world, not just glib tricksters who know how to pander for votes. But we don't put our money where our mouth is.

Let's face it. You're not likely to get a good suit of clothes at a flea market. And you're not likely to get the cream of the crop to go into the government when they would have to accept a big drop in income to do so.

There are always going to be warm bodies available to fill the jobs in government. We have lots of warm bodies there now. There will also always be some people who are willing to sacrifice their family's economic security and standard of living, in order to get their hands on the levers of power.

These are precisely the kinds of people whom it is dangerous to have holding the levers of power.
Can we afford to pay members of Congress, the President of the United States, and federal judges the kinds of money that would enable us to tap a far wider pool of far more knowledgeable people with successful real world experience? We can't afford not to. Cheap politicians are expensive in their reckless spending of tax money. It is the ultimate in being penny-wise and pound-foolish.

To get some idea of the cost, ask yourself: How much would it cost to pay every member of Congress, the president, and every federal judge a million dollars a year?

There are 535 members of Congress, so a salary of a million dollars a year would cost $535 million, or just over half a billion dollars. There are 188 federal appellate judges and one President of the United States. That's 189 more people, bringing the total number of people to 724, and the total cost to $724 million, at a time when people in Washington are talking trillions.

That is less than one percent of the annual cost of the Department of Agriculture. Put differently, we could pay all of these 724 officials a million dollars a year each — for an entire century — for less than it costs to run the Department of Agriculture for one year.

If we limited how long any given individual could hold office in the government — preferably one term — we could have highly knowledgeable people with real world experience in charge of taking care of the nation's business, instead of spending their time doing things to get reelected.

They would be a lot harder for special interests to bribe with campaign contributions, when high officials would face no more campaigns after getting elected. We don't need career politicians.

The best crop of public officials this country has ever had were in the generation that founded the United States of America. Most of the Founders had careers outside of politics.

Is all this a realistic prospect in the world today? Of course not! What is the most realistic prospect today is the status quo today.

But the New Deal was not a realistic prospect three years before Franklin D. Roosevelt took office. It was not a realistic prospect in 1775 that the American colonies would become an independent nation a year later. The whole point of discussing new ideas is to get people thinking about them, so that they might become realistic prospects in the future.
So what do you think? Some good ideas, some bad? A bunch of hogwash perhaps, or would this actually work out pretty good?

Discuss.
 
Pay less!
It is conceivable that these politicians should NOT be paid at all....
Limit of two terms for all
Reps from 2 years(ridiculous) to 4 years
Sens from 6 years(excessive) to 4
True and absolute campaign and campaign finance reform( one penny per vote - this is new)
Truth in advertising
Communications reform.
These things are overdue by a century !.....or more...
 
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I think we should pay them far less. There needs to be a mindset among government officials that they exist to serve the people, not that we exist to serve them. I don't support term limits due to that dramatically changing the structure of the House and Senate, but I do support largely limiting their salary and making their lives essentially free from all privacy.
 
I'd support term limits but wouldn't support a pay increase.
 
Since most Congressmen are already rich I do not think paying them more for not doing thier jobs is a good idea. I wish to make a strong comment here. CONGRESSMEN AND GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS ARE NOT NECESSARILY THE SAME THING. GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS FOR THE MOST PART DON'T HAVE TERMS OF OFFICE BUT REAL JOBS.

As for term limits I would rather see a change in the Constitution where all elected officials of the Federal government and perhaps the states serve 2-3 terms of 6 years each. They spend far too much time campaiging or preparing for the next election than they should be instead of doing thier GD jobs.
 
I read a good article from Thomas Sowell, an economist, philosopher, and author, and senior fellow at the Hoover Institute. In the article, he makes the argument that it might be better to pay our government officials more, as well as limiting terms (preferably to one). I highly recommend reading the article before voting.

So what do you think? Some good ideas, some bad? A bunch of hogwash perhaps, or would this actually work out pretty good?

Discuss.

I would keep the pay the same. But limit it two terms in each office and a five year waiting period between offices.For example if a politician finishes serving two terms as a city councilor then he would have to wait five years before being allowed to run for mayor,sheriff, alderman, congress,president, governor or any other office regardless if it is elected or appointed position. The goal of this would be prevent politicians from carrying over any influence from their previous position.
 
Neither. I believe elected officials should be paid less and they should not be limited to one term.
 
The less you pay government "officials" the more you up your government up to graft.

I like the term limits thing, but think one is too short. Perhaps limit the terms to two. Especially the congress critters.
 
I personally support paying them the same, or less, and limiting them to two terms. Paying them more won't make them any less ideological, or any wiser. Public servants should be in the game for serving, not for personal or ego gain.
 
I'm undecided about what both of these would end up incentivizing. Paying them less seems fair, but then who would strive for it? Maybe everyone that sought public office would stand to gain something more secretive, and wouldn't go for it unless there was something waiting for them at the other end. This could ultimately be equally as corrupt.

Maybe there should be no term limit, and we should pay them MORE. Hell, maybe a lot more. That way it would be left up to the people whether their politicians were A) doing a good job and B) doing a good ENOUGH job to continue justifying their million dollar salaries?

Maybe the money would draw people's attention and they'd have a sense of caring about how well their politicians were doing. Maybe to pay for just their officials' salaries there should be a separate direct tax (not just from the general fund) so that we could see in dollar terms what's withheld from our paychecks to pay our officials' salaries? That way it would FEEL like we're employing them. And it should, because we ARE.
 
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In hindsight I should have put an "other" poll option. I'll know better next time.

I kind of agree with the concept. Paying them more gives more people incentive to become one, instead of today where successful surgeons, engineers, etc. make more than our Congressman, as Sowell points out. Because of the low pay relative to other professions, the only reason someone wants to be in the government is for the power. Another problem is when they get elected, they spend too much time trying to get re-elected rather than trying to do their jobs. Limiting them to one term prevents this.
 
Looking over the pluses and minuses to term limit of one term, I favor them. It would drastically curtail the power of special interests, will make politicians concentrate on doing their job instead of being in constant re-election mode. On salary, I would have a low base salary and tie very lucrative bonuses to things like each percentage point decrease in government costs as percentage of GNP, unemployment rate, etc
 
I read a good article from Thomas Sowell, an economist, philosopher, and author, and senior fellow at the Hoover Institute. In the article, he makes the argument that it might be better to pay our government officials more, as well as limiting terms (preferably to one). I highly recommend reading the article before voting.

So what do you think? Some good ideas, some bad? A bunch of hogwash perhaps, or would this actually work out pretty good?

Discuss.

I would be willing to pay more for our members of Congress if we could also put an end to lobbying.

And I'm not in favor of term limits. Rather, I much more prefer age limits.
 
I believe politicians should get paid on commission only. When the country is being run well, they get paid good. When the country is being run bad, they get paid bad. I have never worked for a company that keeps me employed and paid when I am doing a bad job. Neither should a politician. That should go for any public service job.

In saying that, it would make politicians strive to be the best they can. Be the examples for our society they always talk about and fail miserably at. Not all politicians are bad, I admit. But it is hard to see the good in them when you hear so many negative things about them.

There should be no more than 2 terms for any position. They should have a 1 year hiatus before being allowed to run for another position. No bills can be authored or voted on that give them financial kickbacks. They get the same holiday schedule as most working Americans. No more recess time. If there is an issue that needs to be resolved, they can't take time off until it is resolved. I can't decide to take a couple days off when there is a hot issue at work. Sometimes I have to put in overtime to get an issue resolved. The same principal should go for our politicians. They are working for us and should be subjected to the same working policies.

Lobbying should be made illegal and punishable with a felony conviction. There is absolutely no need for special interest groups. We are capable of writing and calling our Representatives and Senators and discussing important issues. We can even go as far as making a required "Town Hall" discussion, where they have to address our concerns.

I think I hit the major issues I see with our current system.
 
I read a good article from Thomas Sowell, an economist, philosopher, and author, and senior fellow at the Hoover Institute. In the article, he makes the argument that it might be better to pay our government officials more, as well as limiting terms (preferably to one). I highly recommend reading the article before voting.

So what do you think? Some good ideas, some bad? A bunch of hogwash perhaps, or would this actually work out pretty good?

Discuss.




Well there is much to be said for higher salaries attracting better people for a position,
I just can't go along with his thinking. Salaries are but the tip of the iceberg of what ends
being our overall cost consider just the following that we as tax payers are also paying for.


Representatives have one allowance available to support them in their official and
representational duties to the districts from which they were elected. This allowance is the
Members’ representational allowance (MRA). The 2011 allowances range from $1,356,975
to $1,671,596, with an average MRA of $1,446,009.


The total amount available in each Senator’s Official Personnel and Office Expense Account
(SOPOEA) The three allowances for all Senators are funded together in a single appropriation subaccount,
“Senators’ Official Personnel and Office Expense Account,” within the appropriation account
“Contingent Expenses of the Senate.” The list of total office allowances contained in the Senate
report on the its version of the FY2012 legislative branch appropriations bill (S.Rept. 112-80),

shows a range of $2,960,726 to $4,685,279, depending on the state. The average allocation, was
$3,206,825.


Each Senator is authorized $40,000 for state office furniture and furnishings for one or more
offices, if the aggregate square footage of office space does not exceed 5,000 square feet. The
base authorization is increased by $1,000 for each authorized additional incremental increase in
office space of 200 square feet.


According to the Congressional Research Service, 413 retired Members of Congress were receiving
federal pensions based fully or in part on their congressional service as of Oct. 1, 2006.
Of this number, 290 had retired under CSRS and were receiving an average annual pension of $60,972.
A total of 123 Members had retired with service under both CSRS and FERS or with service under FERS only.
Their average annual pension was $35,952 in 2006. (those retiring under FERS only are also eligible for SS benefits)


Foreign travel is not included in any of the perks listed, that is another perk along with all expenses
that go with it.

Then you have the money gifted in one way or another from lobbyists, and who knows what kind of figure
that is. Plus after being voted out or retiring, you have a career as a lobbyist

Then of course you have their gold plated health insurance

I'm sure if someone was to take the time to research this completely, they would find that what I have listed
is just a small part of what it actually costs the taxpayers of this country for each member elected.
 
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