quadtard wrote:
Politicians are paid such "lavish" amounts because it endorses the idea that joe shmoe can run for office, win and not have his family starve. however it neglects the millions needed for campaigning, butt licking and all of the shady dealing needed to secure enough support to actually win. A simple way to ensure that there is no political body that can vote themselves like 200m or something dumb a year is to just tie the salary to the inflation rate somehow, so it is a constant increase, following theoritically everyone elses wage increases over time, instead of jumps every few years that always scares people/accusation of them being greedy bastards.
What?
Do you realize that not only do politicians not pay a penny of their campaign and professional expenses out of pocket, doing so would probably be illegal?
The entire reason American politics is so corrupt is because all those campaign expenses...are paid by donors. Politicians fund their professional expenses on an office allowance, like corporate professionals.
The solution is to give politicians fixed campaign allowances and ban TV adverts and mandate a standard format for campaign promotions.
Before politicians were reasonably well-paid, they were even MORE corrupt.
