Dem Maine Congressman Jared Golden and Pennsylvania Republican Brian Fitzpatrick on Thursday blocked pay raises for members in the 2024 annual spending bill, Politico’s Nick Wu reports.
Kind of fucking stupid and short-sighted. Members of Congress should get paid at the very minimum $1 million a year. Now why would National Zero print something that ridiculous? An increase in pay lowers the incentive to quit and go work in lobbying as the mere prospect of future potential earnings working for corporate interests influences currently serving members. It would also reduce the incentives to engage in more garden-variety corruption like insider trading, bribery, taking gold bars and a Mercedes from the Egyptian government, et cetera.
Of course a raise like that would absolutely have to be paired with far, far stricter public disclosure requirements, and personal scrutiny on the level of what CIA agents face. Pay should also be tied to performance, like any delay in funding the government or failure to pass any bill that the other chamber passed with more than 60 percent support should result in immediate pay freezes.
Higher pay, deeper colonsocopies, and more pain for fucking off from the job is the way to go.