Pelosi: Congressional pay cut undermines dignity of the job

Quote from smegalicious : But why is party affiliation so crucial? Because of the funding & fundraising opportunities that come with it...

And the organization. You could eliminate all the funding to make it an "equal playing field" and third parties would still get trounced.

(BTW, not sure how that would happen, as much funding is considered free speech.)

Maybe the funding needs to be eliminated and an "affirmative action" system set up to assist less established parties into a competitive state.

Quote from 124nic8 : Just don't pretend they are the kind of employees I was talking about. But I've since realized there are a lot of owners of companies who want to see their employees take a pay cut so they can increase the owner's share.

The owners in this case being the taxpayers. I'm OK with that given their performance.

Quote from andyfico : The owners in this case being the taxpayers. I'm OK with that given their performance.

Owners being SOME taxpayers. Namely the 1%. Actually more like the .01%

Quote from 124nic8 : Owners being SOME taxpayers. Namely the 1%. Actually more like the .01%

To use your words "^ unsubstantiated opinion". So you think that only the taxes of the 1% pay for Congressional Salaries? How did you figure that out?

Quote from andyfico : To use your words "^ unsubstantiated opinion". So you think that only the taxes of the 1% pay for Congressional Salaries? How did you figure that out?

That's not what I said.

The owners are the 1%. The rest own squat in comparison. Minority shareholders.....

Quote from 124nic8 : That's not what I said. The owners are the 1%. The rest own squat in comparison. Minority shareholders.....

That's only your unsubstantiated opinion. If we reduce total Congressional pay by $1, how do you determine who amongst the taxpayers contributed how much to that $1 in pay. Unless you are arguing that the rich pay most all of the taxes in this country????

Quote from JackHandey : I submit that I have seen no evidence that Nancy Pelosi has any dignity to lose.

Agreed!


Maybe, they need to pass a pay cut FIRST ...



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usJ-pMomvLQ

Quote from andyfico : That's only your unsubstantiated opinion.

It's been well documented and presented numerous times here that the top wealthy in this country own the majority of assets.

Though apparently the majority stake falls somewhere between the top 1% and top 10%.

Quote : If we reduce total Congressional pay by $1, how do you determine who amongst the taxpayers contributed how much to that $1 in pay. Unless you are arguing that the rich pay most all of the taxes in this country????

Relevance of this hypothetical?

Nancy Pelosi being in the house undermines dignity of the American people

Quote from TRNT : If we do not eliminate the influence of money, term limits would have a small effect. If we eliminate the influence of money in our election and politics, then corrupt people, be it term limited or not, are more likely to be voted out of the office.I think discussions of term limits distract from the more important problem of influence of money.

The issue is that money in the long term is governed more by longevity than acute amounts - politicians stop at nothing to get re-elected because 2 or 4 or 6 more years of the gravy train benefits them. So, to eliminate financial incentive, there must be limits on longevity.

There was a point in time when being a Senator, etc was seen as a few years one took out of their "day job" to serve the country, then to retire from and go back to private life. Heck, we didn't have limits on POTUS until relatively recently - the founders didn't intend for people to be career politicians (a career POTUS would be similar to a King, no?), perhaps they were naive enough to believe that people would step down just for the good of the country. Hah!

I disagree on term limits. Congress is the best chance to elect someone that really represents an area. If you have a good Congressman/woman, why force them out with term limits?

Quote from Danman114 : I disagree on term limits. Congress is the best chance to elect someone that really represents an area. If you have a good Congressman/woman, why force them out with term limits?

Exactly. Moreover, not everyone can pick up and afford to leave a job if their new career in Congress would only be for a fixed number of years.

Quote from roughnready : Exactly. Moreover, not everyone can pick up and afford to leave a job if their new career in Congress would only be for a fixed number of years.

They are vested after 5 years and most won't need to worry about affording life after Congress.
Congressional Pension [wikipedia.org]

Quote from TRNT : If we do not eliminate the influence of money, term limits would have a small effect. If we eliminate the influence of money in our election and politics, then corrupt people, be it term limited or not, are more likely to be voted out of the office.I think discussions of term limits distract from the more important problem of influence of money.

Never gonna happen. Power = money. No way around it. Even if you put some sort of limit on a politician's spending, say 100K per person, per year. You will have the "supporters" buying air-time, billboards, lawn signs, etc and using those for their candidate. It's a free society, there is no way to effectively limit outside money from getting involved.