Should We Pay Politicians More?

It’s kind of a weird idea, but let me explain why I think paying politicians and people in positions of government would actually help the US.

Politicians suck

Currently, the state of our government seems to be chaos. (Maybe it’s always been, I don’t really know) It seems to me that people in government positions disagree about things that everybody wants, just because of a party rivalry or complicated politics. I don’t know about you, but I think that politicians should do what the people want!

How much politicians get paid

According to PayScale and my limited knowledge of how these salaries work, the average politician in a 2010 federal government position got paid about $110,000. This is a lot of money for the average person, but keep in mind that these are the people that are running our nation.

What politicians are motivated by

I assume that politicians are not motivated by money, because while their salary is good, there are a lot easier ways to get paid that kind of money that are far simpler, faster, and don’t involve winning an election for a coveted spot. If politicians aren’t motivated by money, then they must be motivated by something else, which is power. However, being motivated by power isn’t a good thing. When asked for a reason for running for a spot in the federal government, a common response is simply “I want this position because I want to help the nation.” Sure, ok. What this really means is that they want power. And the quote we all know well from J.K. Rowling sums up my thoughts pretty well: “Those who want power do not deserve it. And those who deserve power do not want it.”

How do we get good people to run?

By throwing money at them! Of course, it’s not this simple, but we really should consider incentivizing running for government positions. I don’t know how much money this requires, but I think that this should be given some thought.