Corruption in Government - written 9/29/05
I think we can all agree at this point that both parties have had a
long history of helping themselves to the public trough. I wonder if
it would be an appropriate time to come up with ideas to clear that.
I'll go first, I favor a market based, carrot and stick approach:
1. We raise the Presidents salary to $1M / Yr, and tie it to some
appropriate average of fortune 500 compensation.
2. We raise a Senator's salary to $600k / Yr, and tie it to a similar measure.
3. We raise a congressman's salary to $500k / yr in a similar fashion.
4. We raise all cabinet rank positions to match Senators.
5. All SES positions can go as high as a Member of Congress's.
6. We eliminate the pension and health care (My original idea was kill) of anyone SES or above convicted (or censured by either the Senate or Congress) of corruption charges.
My goal was to make the pay more equivalent to commercial jobs. I
was trying for a mid range # for guys with ability. If I could have
figured out some kind of Merit pay system for them, then I would
have. (Alas, I'm not that smart)
The Social Justice crowd, (of which I'll often put a foot in their
camp), is part of the problem, at some point, we got it into our head
that Government employees were paid too much, and shouldn't have
their pay reach market levels.
A Supreme Court justice makes somewhere between $156k-$176k or so.
These are supposed to be the top attorneys in the land. Yet, in
private practice, a mediocre attorney can earn $1M / year.
A CEO of a company of 200 employees will often earn 6 mid to high six
figures. Yet we've got cabinet members w/ 100k employees who make
less than I did when I was at Apple.
A Job that costs over $100M to get, should pay more than 400k / year.
Running for the Senate costs over $30M in many states. Yet once
you've got the job, you maintain two homes, and often several offices
on your salary, and you often commute weekly to and from the office.
We need to fix what it costs to get these jobs, but we also need to
fix what they pay, we need good people in office.
I bet your ideas will be different!
long history of helping themselves to the public trough. I wonder if
it would be an appropriate time to come up with ideas to clear that.
I'll go first, I favor a market based, carrot and stick approach:
1. We raise the Presidents salary to $1M / Yr, and tie it to some
appropriate average of fortune 500 compensation.
2. We raise a Senator's salary to $600k / Yr, and tie it to a similar measure.
3. We raise a congressman's salary to $500k / yr in a similar fashion.
4. We raise all cabinet rank positions to match Senators.
5. All SES positions can go as high as a Member of Congress's.
6. We eliminate the pension and health care (My original idea was kill) of anyone SES or above convicted (or censured by either the Senate or Congress) of corruption charges.
My goal was to make the pay more equivalent to commercial jobs. I
was trying for a mid range # for guys with ability. If I could have
figured out some kind of Merit pay system for them, then I would
have. (Alas, I'm not that smart)
The Social Justice crowd, (of which I'll often put a foot in their
camp), is part of the problem, at some point, we got it into our head
that Government employees were paid too much, and shouldn't have
their pay reach market levels.
A Supreme Court justice makes somewhere between $156k-$176k or so.
These are supposed to be the top attorneys in the land. Yet, in
private practice, a mediocre attorney can earn $1M / year.
A CEO of a company of 200 employees will often earn 6 mid to high six
figures. Yet we've got cabinet members w/ 100k employees who make
less than I did when I was at Apple.
A Job that costs over $100M to get, should pay more than 400k / year.
Running for the Senate costs over $30M in many states. Yet once
you've got the job, you maintain two homes, and often several offices
on your salary, and you often commute weekly to and from the office.
We need to fix what it costs to get these jobs, but we also need to
fix what they pay, we need good people in office.
I bet your ideas will be different!
posted by Les at
5:18 PM
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