Pity The Poor Congressfolk Who Cannot Get A Pay Raise

[Sava]

Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe

Kinda like what free market automatically enforces.

First, have you worked in the private sector lately? If you are going to hold the private sector up as an example of what the "free market" can do for weeding out the stupid, well... be my guest.

Second, the "free market" is an ideal that doesn't exist.

The reality is, morons are everywhere. If you want to attract the best and brightest, you have to pay for them. Performance reviews (especially in sales) are not an effective indicator of someone's ability, competence, or intelligence because there are many variables involved. Effective managers can recognize quality people and put them in the proper system to succeed. It's a question of leadership, not meaningless forms of accountability.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe
Actually Kuci, money means little to these folk. Its all about power. Incenting with more money has very little liklihood of increasing the quality of the average congress critter.

That wasn't my argument. I suspect that whatever we pay them the same sort of person will be elected. However, I think they will use their power to provide themselves with a standard of living commensurate with their potential incomes.

[MRT144]

Originally posted by Jon Miller


Same theory is applied to CEOs, so we have CEOs that make insanely large ammounts of money. And still suck.

JM

Exactly. Not mention the bonuses for leaving, nor the starving of the company up for a takeover so their options will be worth huge amounts. Increased pay doesn't attract the best, It attracts teh most greedy, and the greedy range from smart to stupid.

[Kuciwalker]

Congressmen get great bonuses for leaving: an order of magnitude increase in pay at a lobbying firm.

[Imran Siddiqui]

[q=Sava]If you want to attract better people to government, how about pay bureaucrats more?[/q]

I Sava .

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by Sava

Effective managers can recognize quality people and put them in the proper system to succeed. It's a question of leadership, not meaningless forms of accountability.

Your right its not like results matter and that organizations should in any way strive for better results. It simply good enough that a managers think they have quality people. (not that they actually utilize them or their talents)

[MRT144]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Congressmen get great bonuses for leaving: an order of magnitude increase in pay at a lobbying firm.

wrong!

[Kuciwalker]

?

[MRT144]

it's a false analogy. The government isn't a company and isn't bound by the same ideas, rules, and customs as companies.

[Kuciwalker]

How does that refute my statement?

[Dinner]

Originally posted by snoopy369

I agree absolutely ... honestly, Oerdin et al, the people this is affecting are not the rich $%#holes, but the congressmen/women who are NOT rich, and actually need the money. The $2800 will have no effect whatsoever to the millionaires one way or the other. It just means a few more people will decide they can't afford to run for congress ...

I'm still not crying for them. Still, I'd love to help them out though since serving in Congress is such a hardship duty (boo f'ing ho) then we can pass term limits to make sure their exposure to such hardships is limited.

Something tells me the Congressmen won't go for it though. I guess it isn't such a terrible hardship to be paid $160,000 (plus cost of living and the odd free trip).

[MRT144]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
How does that refute my statement?

it refutes the comparison. were you just throwing a non sequitar out there./

[Kuciwalker]

I wasn't the one who compared Congressmen to CEO's.

[realpolitic]

Originally posted by Timexwatch
Everybody thinks that Congressfolks have it easy and are overpaid, but you have to remember that they're often on call for many hours of the day (floor and committee votes occuring often after midnight), have to digest voluminous amounts of information, make important decisions on public policy while maintaining accessibility to the folks back in the district and keeping a family. I have yet to meet a member who is just 9 to 5. I've seen them coming and going from roundtables, fundraisers, think tanks and the capitol at all hours of the day and night.

And they pay? Anyone tried maintaining a family over a huge distance? Imagine you're a representative from California or Washington. You have to maintain a house in the district (and a mortage) and an apartment in Washington, D.C., Maryland or Virginia ($900 - $1500 a month at the bare minimum in one of the most expensive areas in the US) while paying your family's bills, saving for you kids college, paying your own bills and occasionally flying them to DC so that you can spend at least a few hours a week with them. Like it or not, the pay is commisurate with the time and effort involved with being a member of Congress.

The people who ***** about this usually don't know how hard most members work.

Agreed, Congressmen/Senators earn $165,000. While that might be a lot to most of us, even given their extra expenses, why not give them a bit more to make sure the best are interested? I wouldn't mind giving them $400,000 for their level of responsibility. Beyond that, money becomes fairly meaningless, and would only appeal to the greedy.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Maybe this has already been said -- I haven't read the whole thread -- but the 1.7% raise is a blanket raise for all federal workers, including bureaucrats like me and, I believe, members of the military (I could be wrong about that, though).

The outrage here isn't that Congress wants to include itself in the general Federal COLA bump. The outrage is that 1.7% is about half the rate of inflation last year, which means that I and every other chump working for Uncle Sam just got a real-world pay cut. Thanks, Congress!