Michael Lissack
2. Raise Government Pay
No democracy or republic in the history of the world has paid its leaders according to how well those leaders governed. More the opposite. Overall, outright corruption might be the norm, and just plain stealing from the pub- lic till has probably enriched more politicians than has good, honest decision making. At present, we scream that we want our congressmen to ignore the special interests, and we want to take the special interest money away from them. Vote the Department of Theft (DPT) out of existence, we say -- but the DPT helps pay for the congressman’s reelection. And what do we offer the congressman to be good instead? Absolutely nothing. We could pay our leaders more when they do their jobs well. How rad- ical is that? Call it bribery or anything you want, but what are the alterna- tives? Right now we pay the government the same way the communists paid everybody-you get the same every year, or a small raise, no matter how stupid or smart you’ve been. What a system! We have absolutely no mecha- nism for raising our leaders’ salaries for good behavior. Instead, we presume the charlatans are lucky to get anything at all from us, and scream bloody murder every time Congress tries to vote themselves any pay raise at all. And our leaders are so grossly underpaid, it is a miracle all of them aren’t robbing us blind purely out of spite. Somehow we have decided the people running the most powerful nation on earth, people with the power to make us and much of the -rest of the world richer or incinerate the biosphere within a few hours, should be paid less than a twenty-three year old kid on Wall Street. The cost to the American public from having their best business and financial minds unwilling to work in the public sector is incalculable. At a time when our manufacturing corporations are engaged in a battle to hold their own against foreign competition, one can legitimately worry lest too much talent be diverted to investment advising, consulting, and other fields of business less vital to our national interests. Many of the nation’s most successful private citizens now avoid public service because of the extensive financial disclosure information required by the White House as a condition of high-ranking federal employment.
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