Give Congress Perks And A Raise
CBS's Meyer: It's Easy To Gripe About Lobbyists, But You Get The Politicians You Pay For
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Photo
Then U.S. Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., right, and U.S. Rep. Chip Pickering, R-Miss., celebrate their reelections in Jackson, Miss., Nov. 7, 2006. With Lott's resignation in December 2007 and Pickering not running for re-election after 11 years in congress, the state lost an effective one-two punch in Congress. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)
Being in Congress used to be a career, now it’s a stepping stone. All the cool kids want to get out. Many of them want to be president. But a lot more want to be lobbyists.
The latest legislator-turned-lobbyist is Richard Baker, a Louisiana House member who was the second-ranking Republican on the Committee on Financial Services, a coveted gig in political eras past. But it’s a piker’s job compared to Baker’s new set-up as head of the Managed Funds Association, the hedge fund industry’s trade group.
Another bayou Republican, Jim McCrery, just gave up an even better post as the ranking member of the House Ways and Means Committee. McCrery is just 58 years old, Baker is 59. Both could have had long runs as Congressional czars.
Trent Lott, once the Senate Majority Leader, just quit to open a lobbying shop with a Democratic dealmaker, John Breaux who used to represent Louisiana in the Senate.
A generation ago it would have been unthinkable for young, powerful legislators to willingly leave Congress unless it was for other public service. Power and glory came with seniority and expertise. Now it’s the norm to get out young.
There are problems with this, but they aren’t the ones that get discussed.
The usual complaint is that lobbying is sleazy and the revolving door corrupts Congress. But if you think about it, lobbying isn’t sleazy or improper. What is sleazy and improper is when lawmakers succumb to lobbying for bad reasons. The vice of today’s faster revolving door is not that it makes the lobby more powerful, but that it makes the Congress less powerful.
Since at least Watergate, the mission of reformers and do-gooders has been to stem the flow of money into politics and the access of petitioners to the powerful. This goes against human nature and thus, will continue to fail.
It’s time for a fresh and radical approach. Instead of beating up on lobbyists, we should try building up legislators. We should give them huge pay raises, perks and expense accounts. We should immunize them from special-interest infections. We should give them what in the business world is called “f --- you” money. Really.
It’s time for a fresh and radical approach. Instead of beating up on lobbyists, we should try building up legislators.
The campaign finance system already forces politicians to be perpetual grovelers. Must we force them to hustle for baseball tickets and t-bones as well?
Senators should make at least a million and House members at least $750,000, probably more. They should have huge private accounts and travel budgets so that they would never be tempted by a junket, feast or floozy financed by a lobbyist. They should be able to pay their staff big bucks so they could hire the almost-best and nearly-the-brightest.
Now a million dollars a year wouldn’t come close to putting a senator in the financial class of Big Ten football coach, a mid-level investment banker or a local TV anchor. But it’s a decent wage.
The goal here is to create what Congress once had: tyrants.
This might seem counter-intuitive and undemocratic but it isn’t. Think about who modern legislators have to face off against: CEOs making $5-55 million a year; hedge fund managers who can make $500 million a year; retired Senators making $2 million a year lobbying; plus a full cast of labor bosses, civil rights leaders, oil sultans, petty despots, governors and cabinet members.
You need legislative tyrants to do that work properly. You need the people with fiefdoms, clout, bureaucratic savvy and policy expertise to balance other great powers in society. The 20th century Congress produced a steady stream of people - Dirksens, Mansfields and Fulbrights. No more. It’s time to invest.
The time is ripe for something bad to happen at the intersection of Power & Money.
The economy is on the verge of recession. Inflation is up and so is unemployment. Office-seekers want to somehow stimulate the economy, Democrats with spending, Republicans with tax cuts. The government is running deficits and borrowing from foreign sources, the same foreign sources that are bailing out U.S. financial institutions. Wealth is as concentrated as it has ever been in American history.
That is a perfect storm for either scandal or terrible legislation - or both.
I’d feel better if we had a gaggle of smart, mean old men and women who had been around forever - who didn’t care who they offended, who weren’t getting set to cash in - standing guard over our Capitol and our capital.
E-mail questions, comments, complaints, arguments and ideas to Against the Grain. We will publish some of the interesting (and civil) ones, sometimes in edited form.
By Dick Meyer
© MMVIII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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See all 71 CommentsIt isn''t about the money, it is about the human.
So Mr. Meyer, you wish to raise their salaries? How much? Enough so they won''t continue to take millions in bribes, oops, "lobbying efforts"?
And after you raise their pay, what will stop them from still being on the take?
I have a cheaper idea, outlaw lobbying, and jail, without judge''s discretion, any and all legislators receiving money, gifts, perks, or any such addition to their salaries.
We have Americans starving, living in the streets, and you want to pay even more to the scum that created the situation? I bet you also don''t want to raise taxes to pay for your foolishness either, do you?
The U.S. is becoming more like former USSR. The perks are given to those with the best rank in the party system. Where USSR had only one party to rip the people off we have have two, so we pay twice as much.It time for the people of America to say enough is enough.
I say if congress can''t live on over $100,000.00 per year resign and let someone else live on that measly salary. I believe they were elected to serve the people. So serve or get out the way.
Congress spent $2.7 TRILLION last year -- that''s 20% of all income earned in the country. They dictate how much we should save for retirement (Social Security). They tell us what our children should be learning in school and how they should be learning it. They subsidize multi-billion dollar corporations and then tax them for being "too profitable."
If Congress did not have such extensive control over our lives, there would be NO REASON for bribes! All those poor lobbyists would be out of a job, and we wouldn''t need all these ridiculous campaign finance laws.
Congressional pay is just fine where it is. If you want to curb corruption, give them LESS POWER and LESS CONTROL over our lives!
No more private donations where all the candidates have to write IOU''s to donors for future favors.
..............Unless you''re Mitt Romney who doesn''t have to write these IOU''s............akd Mr. Clean and aka Mr. Fixer.
It time we fixed Washington DC and I say let''s hire Mitt Romney to "clean house"
..........GO MITT !!!
Think of all the talented people, decent people who might be interested in public service if they could make a salary at least in the ball park of what they can make in the private sector. Why go through the heartache and not make enough so that money is no concern. People with the necessary skills can do much better elsewhere. These are skills that few of us have. It''s a *** hard job.
It''s called the law of supply and demand. With minimal demand, the supply will be substandard. Period.
It''s called buying back our government. The corrupting influence of corporate and special interest money in our government is the main problem from which almost all others arise. Our elected representatives do not represent us at all.
The real fix would be strictly enforced rules on lobbyist and require that their meetings be part of the public record since members of congress are funded by the public. Any meeting they have relative to their public duties should be part of the public record. It will never happen.
As for hobnobbing with the rich and famous..... why? they are public servants period.. a little less partying and lot more hours working and just maybe the electorate would not be pissed at a moderate raise..
Oh... and term limits has a similar effect on the corruption since the turnover would be constant..
Lobbyist and pacs should be outlawed, period... and so should corporate contributions to candidates..
Sorry D|ck, you''re way off base on this one..
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Posted by tomanyt at 02:18 PM : Jan 17, 2008
Yeah, throw out that pesky first amendment to the constitution.
Just to let you know because you wont get this on CBS News, The Culinary Workers Union is going to be allowed to caucus at work in Vegas on Saturday despite the efforts of the Clintons to prevent their first Amendment Rights.
Instead of "Rock the Vote" the Clintons should use "Stop the Vote" with Obamma being the undertone.
Let''s just do away with Congress in the future, just like we''ve done over the last 7 years with His Majesty Bush, The Decider. The Dim Congress isn''t any better than than the Repug Congress anyway is it? So much great legislation has been rolled out over the last several years that''s it''s hard to make a list of accomplishments with anything other than the spending bills to fuel the wars and pet projects of the crooks.
So let''s make this thing performance based, one of those new paradigm deals, with value-added and the rest of that middle management hog-wash thrown in for good measure.
In this day of computers why not let the public vote on legislation presented by legislators to The People. Oops, that just wouldn''t work would it? Then the lobbyist would have to lobby the American People rather than a few greedy, power hungry "leaders'' in Congress. The Lobbycraticans would never allow the people to get involved nor would the Decider, and from reading these forums on a regular basis perhaps they are right.
They are suppose to be public servants but the greatest majorty of them don''t believe in anything other than lining their own pockets at the taxpayers expense.
And why would that be enough? It''s never enough for the pimps and punks that are running our government these days.
And why would that be enough? It''''s never enough for the pimps and punks that are running our government these days.
Posted by gkc99 at 08:53 PM : Jan 17, 2008-----------You got that right. Along time ago one of the big bankers (JP Morgan maybe?) was asked how much money is enough money. He answered simply,......Just a little more.
It''s bad enough that so many of them are elected through political campaigns funded by wealthy corporations and other interests. After leaving "public" life they are free to continue to work for the folks who got them elected in the first place at a healthy personal profit, without fear of being accused of "conflict of interest".
We might as well simply allow corporate America to appoint our legislators and spare us the periodic baloney festivals and advertising campaigns that pass for campaigns these days.
It strikes me as being decidedly immoral, but it will never be illegal as long as folks like these are in a position to make the laws.
The ones that are trying every trick in the book to make deals are doing it because after congress is done with them, they go out and make those same millions as payback for all the favors they gave out while in office.
If we wasted our tax money by paying these morons more, they would just get richer and do the same things, if not WORSE.
Besides, its public service. Thats youre reward period. If you arent doing it for the public good, get out.
GOOD, if you''re in it to get rich, get out!
This *** Meyer guy is the dumbest human being on earth, no wait, hes just a corrupt bashturd also.
Apparently, nowadays, if we keep the salary lower and they can earn huge amounts in the private sector, we''ll quickly get rid of all the greedy scumbags that we dont want making laws for us poor people in need of a politician to do their elected job which is to help their constituents.
To do a stressful job like that, for low pay, would prove you are dedicated to helping the people not there to get rich and fat and be useless and criminal.
and paid $100K per year.
Lobbyists would be banned from washington altogether, and anyone caught trying to bribe one of these elected officials, would recieve the Death Penalty.
There would be a Presidential Election Process, that would have NO cost to the Candidates, payed for by Government, with Scheduled Debates on Public Television, and 10 individual 5 minute commercials allowed per Candidate, and 5 Gladhanding Town Hall meetups per State. Anyone caught doing anything else would be out on their assses.
After a couple years of this, all corruption would be eliminated from Washington. There wouldn''''t be any future in it, so the Scumbags would just move on to other Countries. Problem Solved.
Posted by veteran71 at 10:16 PM : Jan 17, 2008
What you are describing maybe unconstitutional.
I as a private individual have the right to assemble for whatever reason be it political or non-political.
Posted by enriquecalie at 09:53 PM : Jan 17, 2008
If it is, only two people get Mr Meyers sense of humor, himself being one. We have yet to hear from the other.
Mr Meyer likes to look at hot issues deeply and intensely, then uses a national information outlet from which to make consistently frivolous statements about them. And is paid to do so. These kinds of articles fill up the media, so that real news and commentary can''t get published.
Real news and commentary are too against the current regime right now, and since the media is so "liberal-biased" Bush antics don%u2019t get out to the public.
Oh, did you hear? Bush is paying us $800 to shut up for the remainder of his overwhelming lackluster presidency.
I doubt that anyone willing to sacrifice their life to hold office would stoop to taking bribes or being pressured by lobbyists. And I doubt anyone in it for the money would take office if it was the last thing they were going to do in life.
Yes, putting congressmen to death after a term in office is a sure cure for corruption--and it would save a bundle on retirement pensions, too!
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