politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
view the rest of the comments
It shouldn't be a career, but it should also be paid relatively well.
See, if you take away the pay, then only the very rich could ever afford to be politicians, and the very rich are not the sort of people you want in charge of a country...
Case in point, this very article.
Also, when you don't pay politicians, you end up paying them anyway through outright corruption. Which is already a problem, don't make it worse.
The better solution is a consecutive term limit. You can be elected as many times as you can pull it off, just not in a row. You have to go spend a term in your home district every other term or so. So two on, one off.
As a bonus, this two on, one off setup would result in a lot of turnover without forcing every single person in congress to learn how to be in congress every term.
But they are paid well. This happened anyway
Yes, there are a bunch of corrupt bastards. But there are also quite a few who actually seem to give a damn.
Cut away the pay, and then the only people who could ever afford to be politicians would be the people just like the clueless old lady from the article. i.e. the rich.
I dunno what kinda folks you think are in congress. They're all rich. Its not a matter of being able to afford living as an elected official, they have to afford winning an election.
https://www.npr.org/2022/12/09/1141635119/the-first-gen-z-member-of-congress-was-denied-a-d-c-apartment-due-to-bad-credit
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/18/nyregion/albany-lawmakers-housemates.html
https://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/3794921-incoming-generation-z-congressman-says-he-may-couch-surf-after-being-denied-dc-apartment/
https://nypost.com/2018/05/01/these-politicians-are-sleeping-in-their-dc-offices-to-save-money/
Two things:
"Congress" isn't just the Senate, in this context it refers to both houses (or usually, just the House of Representatives). Different people, often with very different backgrounds than "blue blooded," Ivy League legacy senators.
Many of these people (particularly the actual grassroots ones who aren't being funded by outside interests) don't come from wealth, and were normal, working class people prior to their political career.
Everyone in the progressive caucus seem to be good.
No real complaints about any of them. They constantly push for good shit.
And if they weren't paid, you might not have as many of them.
No, the absolute only people you'd have in congress would be rich assholes from rich families.