Agreed. The whole idea that they are in it for the “service” is a really naive idea. If we want honest hardworking and qualified people to do the job the salaries should be in the 500k to 1.5m (senate) range. Then knock out the corruption.
According to this link [1] 200k would put someone above the 80th percentile and not far below the 95th percentile in terms of household income for the DC metro area, so I don't see how that could be considered "underpaid", especially when you consider the benefits.
The type of person who gets elected to Congress is likely to be far above average in charisma/intelligence/skill, and hence underpaid relative to what they could attain in the private sector
I mean, it sounds dumb, but returns from further wealth are logarithmic; after a certain point, the only thing you can buy more of is power. And you’ve already got that, in this case!
If you’re in a situation where getting more wealth could endanger your power, it makes sense not to wealth-max since, again, what else could you buy with it? But you need to get into the “what else could you buy with it” regime for this reasoning to make sense.
Someone who only has basic needs gets there pretty early. But even the relatively unenlightened don’t need the second jet except, yannow, for power.
i'd support that if and only if it required congresspeople to divest from individual stocks. with perhaps some compromise like...maybe they could hold "total market" index funds, or are only able to trade once a year, or etc
