How Confused Can We Remain?

This morning I read an online article by Thomas Sowell that I found a bit confusing. (For those of you who may be unfamiliar with his name, Dr. Thomas Sowell is a black American economist, social theorist, political philosopher, and author. A National Humanities Medal winner, he advocates laissez-faire economics and writes from a conservative and libertarian perspective. He is a graduate of Columbia and Harvard Universities.) I generally find myself in complete agreement with Dr. Sowell's writings, so far be it from me to challenge the intellect of a graduate of those two prestigious universities. But... today's article left me wondering, "What did they do to Dr. Sowell, and where did they hide his body?"

The thrust of the article is (as I read it, anyway) if we want better government, we must pay the politicians more money. The figure he suggested was $1M per annum. Can you see my confusion now? The ones we currently have are severely overcompensated for their "service". We wouldn't be getting our money's worth if they were being paid minimum wage! They are totally irresponsible when it comes to managing our money. The universal attitude in D.C. should be, "Let's spend the taxpayers money as carefully as we would spend our own money." But, it isn't. It's more like, "We just won the lottery! Let's spend it like drunken sailors." We are far from getting our money's worth at yearly freshman's salary of $174,000! We don't need better "politicians" in office, we need better human beings there. Most human beings could live very nicely on half of $174,000 a year


The good Dr's rationale behind increasing the compensation of our nation's "leadership" is somewhat simplistic, in that he believes more money will entice a better, more responsible class of people into government service, and they will be more resistant to bribery. He completely overlooks the fact that, in any nation's government, the true compensation is in POWER and PRESTIGE. Who seeks public office? Those who see themselves as "the ruling class". Who can afford to seek public office? Those who either already have significant money of their own, or those who become indebted to others who have provided them with the money necessary to successfully campaign for office. "Joe The Plumber" doesn't have the money... neither does Bob the bus driver, or Carl the clerk.

A great part of the problem in our legal system, is that our laws are made by state and national legislatures, which are composed primarily of lawyers. Lawyers are practitioners of the law. Why would they want to make our laws simple and easy to understand, when to do so would work against their raison d'être? Why else do our laws provide greater protection to the criminal than to the criminals victim? Why did our Congress support election laws legalizing PACs (Political Action Committees), when those laws are nothing less than a workaround of previously existing election laws? Particularly "Super PACs". In the 2012 election campaign, most of the money given to Super PACs has come not from corporations, but from wealthy individuals. According to data from the Center for Responsive Politics, the top 100 individual super PAC donors in 2011–2012 made up just 3.7% of contributors, but they accounted for more than 80% of the total money raised. Do you believe that those big money donors are kept anonymous, or that your $5-$1,500 personal contribution is even noteworthy (much less appreciated)? If you answered "Yes" to either part of that question, you may now take a seat in the Fool's Section.

As for the monetary compensation of politicians, in one respect it's no different than the monetary rewards experienced by Wall Street investors... for them, there's no such thing as too much money! Those who serve in our government today are very different than our first round of Congressmen (Yes, Virginia, they were in fact all men). The first Congress received no pay, and they all had independent means of income. Most were farmers, some were lawyers, and almost all had common sense and believed in doing what was best for the country. Today most are lawyers, few display any common sense, and almost all are greedy. "Greedy", as I use the term herein, is not necessarily a desire for more money - which meets most people's definition of greed. There are many types of greed, demonstrated at various levels of society. Most educators have a greed for recognition and validation of their intellect. The clergy have an innate greed (referred to by them as "a calling") for the power and control found in molding the ethical and moral values of their flock. Lawyers... well, they're lawyers! Most of them are driven by a greed for recognition, wealth, and being the victor upon the stage they call "court". In some sense, anybody that truly desires to improve their circumstances beyond the "norm", has a greed of some kind driving them. And, there's really nothing wrong with that. Without greed there would be no progress in the world - we would still be living in caves and crude huts! However, it is the means they use to achieve their goals, that distinguishes between appropriate behaviors and inappropriate behaviors. Figuratively speaking, if they leave a "pile of bodies" (backstabbing, cheating, lying, and intentionally destroying the hopes and careers of others for the furtherance of their own personal goals)  in their wake, their actions would be considered inappropriate by most right-minded people (politics is the best example of people demonstrating those behaviors).

Pay our politicians more? NO WAY! They aren't working for "We the People". They are working to further their own agendas, and to hell with their constituents - the people who pay their salaries. Put them on a "piece-rate" - where they only get paid for the days the individual was there, and only for passing legislation that benefits the entire nation. Limit them to two terms, no retirement until they reach the prevailing Social Security retirement age (at which time they get no more in government retirement than 50% of their last federal paycheck), cut their staffing in half, and eliminate all perks that working-class people do not get (i.e. - free meals, free haircuts, etc). We need to refresh our Congress, and the government in general.