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    LordBurleighHamilton Nolan
    12/19/14 12:39pm

    This might be less of an issue at the state government level, but my question—and it's an actual question, I don't know the answer to it—to proposals such as this is: wouldn't this have the paradoxical effect of further limiting the pool of people who can run for office to the already-wealthy? As campaigns cost such an enormous amount of money now (also, let's legislate about that problem to put caps on campaign spending!), if you put strict limits on officeholders' salaries either while or after they're in office, then the only people who could actually afford to hold offices would be the people for whom the preceding campaign would not be financially ruinous, namely, the rich. As much as I think we should get corporate interests and money out of politics, I think it's quite possible that, without something like banning corporate donations to campaigns and also giving each candidate an equal amount of money out of government coffers, any effort to do so would actually have the opposite of its intended effect.

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      sigmaoctansLordBurleigh
      12/19/14 12:44pm

      Yes. But Ham No isn't thinking that logically about it. He thinks we'd somehow get better congresspeople if we, paradoxically, made the job as unappealing as possible.

      A better idea would be to enable STRICT campaign finance laws, and then increase the pay of congresspeople, so it becomes a viable option for non-wealthy people who want to enter public service.

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      Hamilton NolanLordBurleigh
      12/19/14 12:49pm

      No. The vast (90% or more) majority of people will never make more than "the income of the highest paid civil servant" in their lifetimes anyhow. For the vast majority of people this would not actually represent an agreement to a decline in likely income. It would only really effect those people who are intent on using public service as a springboard to getting rich, which is the type of person you don't need in public service.

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    UnderYetOverHamilton Nolan
    12/19/14 12:26pm

    Hamburger is about $4 a pound. Therefore, politicians are worth about $750 each.

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      TopherUnderYetOver
      12/19/14 12:33pm

      "Soylent Green is people! Politicians, not so much..."

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      chattygalUnderYetOver
      12/19/14 12:43pm

      Don't be so generous pricing them at the 90% lean level when there are pennies to be saved classifying them at 75.

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    Medieval KnievelHamilton Nolan
    12/19/14 12:35pm

    One problem with this proposal is that the people who would most readily agree to such a cap are those who are not worth more in any other capacity (as measured by our current capitalist-esque system).

    What if, instead, we paid shitloads? For life? If being elected were like winning the lottery, we might get better participaints — or at the least more colorful ones to choose from.

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      RobNYCMedieval Knievel
      12/19/14 12:44pm

      That's pretty much the system we have now.

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    MaxyPerk4Hamilton Nolan
    12/19/14 2:39pm

    Interesting idea, but dumb. Here's why:

    1. How do you defined "cannot earn more than the highest paid civil servants"? Does this mean if you win the lottery after having served as a state rep, you can't collect more than a tiny fraction of it? Does it mean salary only? What about bonuses? Stock options? What about retirement accounts? Brokerage accounts? Oh, you want to sell your house? Sorry, you have to give all the capital gains back to the state. Grandma died and left you half a million? No dice. Also, companies would find ways to get around it.

    2. Boy, Hamilton, and priests are such a fucking group to emulate right now. Here's the deal, if you completely cap civil servants' income, then let's be honest, a lot of people wanting to go into civil service will be those who couldn't make any more on the outside. So you're effectively dumbing down the legislature. I wouldn't think that you can dumb it down THAT much, but hey I bet it's possible.

    3. You also give special interests even MORE power than they have now. A legislator would now be dependent completely on special interests to fund his/her campaigns. No Mike Bloomberg types. Now we can have a loooooong and fruitful debate over whether Mike Bloomberg was a good mayor, or at least better than the alternative — but at least he wasn't beholden to special interests for putting him there. Compare with our fucking mayor now (and I say this as a lifelong Democrat) who is bought and paid for by: the cab owners' union; the animal rights activists; and various other unions. I don't trust a word out of that man's mouth. He doesn't have the spine to stand up to the cops OR corrections officers and those fuckers are murdering people left and right. Now that's the spineless coward of a moronic shit mayor we have now — but if no one of independent means at all can run for office then that's what they'll all be like

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      PragmaticSquirrelHamilton Nolan
      12/19/14 12:35pm

      They should also be required to donate any wealth above a certain cap upon entering office. The problem is - people will simply give them "favors" instead of money, and the result will be the same.

      Plus - how do you enforce this? It could be a simple tax, but then you'd have politicians designing tax laws so that they could hide any income/ wealth over the caps in tax shelters.

      The only real answer here is that any laws that directly impact congress should be crafted by another legislative body - and can only be passed into law through direct vote by the people.

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        e.nonHamilton Nolan
        12/19/14 12:33pm

        perhaps these assholes should include all the bribes... er, excuse me, campaign contributions that are stashed away.... fuck that useless and staggeringly corrupt body.

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          gus-kalamarasHamilton Nolan
          12/19/14 2:21pm

          In a stable society, we should be infinitely more afraid of those who seek to rule us for non-material gain that those that wish to do so for material gain.

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            burlivesleftnutHamilton Nolan
            12/19/14 1:04pm

            Prepare for the onslaught of people believing only guys already rich enough to accept this voluntary cap would be the only ones in office!

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              RobNYCHamilton Nolan
              12/19/14 12:41pm

              Outside of NYC and it's suburbs, $79,000 isn't a bad salary at all.

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                woofwoofHamilton Nolan
                12/19/14 12:30pm

                You know what? I want to give all of them a raise. A big one. All paying politicians a modest salary does is keep the open only to people who are wealthy already. I want someone growing up in the South Bronx to look at public service as a potentially lucrative career. If we really want to change the demographics of elected officials we need to attract the best and the brightest in traditionally low income communities.

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