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Elected
deserve pay increase Where’d all the good politicians go? They’re probably in a boardroom somewhere. Or maybe in court, arguing a high-profile case. Wherever they are, they certainly aren’t running for office. All the good ones were nowhere near the 2000 presidential election — all we could scrounge up were Al Gore and George W. Bush. Who knows why losers seem to be so prevalent? There are a lot of reasons: huge corporate contributions, earlier primary seasons, you name it. But there’s one issue that doesn’t get much thought — political salaries. One reason for our occasionally pathetic elections could be the terrible pay most of our elected officials earn. No one’s suggesting Tom Sawyer needs to start shopping at Gabriel Bros. or Bob Taft should take out a second mortgage, but most politicians make terrible money considering what they do. Members of the Ohio General Assembly make $51,674 a year, and U.S. congressmen earn $150,000 a year. That’s good pay, to be sure, but it pales in comparison to what people with similar responsibilities in the private sector earn. Congress just got a 3.3 percent pay raise last month, an automatic cost-of-living increase. There was substantial dissent from anti-government types. But the pay raise was totally justified — elected officials at every level in the country could use the exact same raise right now. Few professions are tougher to succeed in than politics. When we consider most politicians could walk away from honorable public service and multiply their income several times over in the private sector, we shouldn’t be too upset about Congress’ latest pay raise. In fact, we should applaud it — maybe it means at some point down the road, a brilliant and ambitious young person will run for office instead of interviewing at Microsoft.
Ben Fischer is a columnist for the Daily Kent Stater at Kent
State University. |
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