Millions of federal workers won’t get paid during a government shutdown. But the people who could prevent or end a shutdown — members of Congress — will still receive a paycheck.
That’s because their pay is protected under Article I, Section 6 of the Constitution, which states: “The Senators and Representatives shall receive a Compensation for their Services, to be ascertained by Law, and paid out of the Treasury of the United States.”
The Constitution “says members will be paid,” Rep. Joe Morelle of New York, the top Democrat on the House Administration Committee, explained to reporters Tuesday.
Among many overhauls that I would like to see, I would like political critters to have limited income, with it based on popular votes held every half-year of their term. Wiping away current standards of income, it would be four brackets for politicians: $40k, $60k, $80k, and $100k annually, initially starting their term at the lowest level. People vote for one of these four, and that is the politician’s pay until the next pay vote.
This would allow voters to tangibly voice their (dis)approval of a politico throughout their term, which incentivizes the critter to actually pay attention to their constitute’s interests. If a politician seems strangely wealthy despite not having high approval pay, that would make it easier to spot corruption as well.
Your heart is in the right place, but the last thing we want to do is make them more incentivized to accept bribes.
Those who are inclined to accept bribery, are not people we want to be leaders. They should be leaders because they find it interesting or want to help their communities, not to become rich.
What I proposed is part of an economic UBI concept that I put together, where incomes from jobs are fixed and rank based, with the rank based on the effort, risk, and knowledge that a job entails. IMO, that would make it harder for employers to commit wage theft, because everyone knows how much money their job should bring in, nation-wide. That makes it easier to diagnose corruption, because outliers have less camouflage of ‘circumstances’ to hide behind. All leadership roles in companies and politics have employees and voters voting for the employment and pay rank of their respective critters.
It is through complicated rules, exploits, and obscuration that the wealthy retain their wealth by being selfish jerks. If the Constitution is replaced by a newer model, economics deserves a section of its own.