He’s not alone: AOC and others have argued lawmakers should be paid more in order to protect against corruption and make the job more accessible.
He’s not alone: AOC and others have argued lawmakers should be paid more in order to protect against corruption and make the job more accessible.
I’ve heard this argument before, and I call bullshit.
Having more money does not protect you from greed, dishonesty, or susceptabiliy to bribes. Proof surrounds us, but you need look no further than Trump. Not as rich as he’d like you to believe, but born with a silver spoon in his mouth and certainly wealthy, and one of the crookedest, corrupt motherfuckers in the public eye.
AOC embarrases herself repeating that patently false position.
I 100% agree, if you’d take a bribe at $174k as a civil servant then you’d take a bribe at any price point. Raising pay doesn’t stop corruption, at best it just raises the price a bit. Trump was supposedly selling pardons for $2 million, he issued 143 pardons (let’s say he was only paid on 10% of those). That’s $28 million in bribes.
If we have to match the bribes to stop corruption then $28 million times 535 members of Congress is $15 billion.