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Someone on here asked "Why don't we just cut politicians pay in half?" and the question was deleted.?
So, here's a more pointed suggestion:
Here are the numbers I suggested to Eric Cantor and http://majorityleader.gov/YouCut/:
President - currently makes: $400,000 pay cut: $90,000
Vice president - currently makes: $227,300 pay cut: $85,000
Speaker of the house - currently makes:$223,500 pay cut: $90,000
Senate Majority party leader - currently makes:$193,400 pay cut: $85,000
Senate Minority party leader - currently makes:$193,400 pay cut: $85,000
House majority party leader - currently makes:$193,400 pay cut: $85,000
House minority party leader - currently makes:$193,400 pay cut: $85,000 (collectively: $425,000)
(530) Rest of congress - currently makes: $174,000 (collectively: $92,220,000) pay cut: $80,000 (collectively: $42,400,000)
Chief justice - currently makes: $223,500 pay cut: $90,000 (collectively: $270,000)
(8) Associate justices - currently makes: $213,900 (collectively: $1,711,200) pay cut: $85,000 (collectively: $680,000)
currently makes: $95,779,100.00 after pay cut: $43,775,000.00
Save
$52,004,100.00 a year
$208,016,400.00 every 4 years
$416,032,800.00 every 8 years
And that's just in Washington.
Currently there are 2.65 million (average) federal workers making $81,258 (average) costing us roughly $215,333,700,000. Now, just a mind exercise that will never happen, but pretend for a moment that we brought public employees wages and benefits IN LINE with the national average of $50,000 like the rest of us (like in Wisconsin, Indiana and everyone else they are protesting this idea), you'd save $8,283,370,000.
What could we do with $8 Trillion dollars? How quick could we turn our slow death spiral around? You can argue about right and wrong, good and bad, what we should do and what we shouldn't, but it's all semantics. The numbers don't lie. Public employment is crushing us. And I didn't even include the military or pensions, which bumps our 'promised' costs into the $100s of Trillions. http://usdebtclock.org/
Agree or disagree?
@Silver - Well, it was getting a lot of thumbs up for the break down and idea. I'm not sure why the question was pulled, it was hardly controversial, but I think if I float the idea in as many places as possible, the people that like it can refine it and funnel it up to their representatives and start applying pressure to reduce their pay. They fancy themselves leaders, they can start by leading by example.
@geoz why be selective with one contract? there are thousands of contracts that could due with a little competitive renegotiating.
@flazatty I know. I'm aware of the Constitutional provisions, I'm just putting the idea out there. The idea that slaves were equal citizens took a long time to get the support it needed, it didn't happen over night. I don't think suggesting that the fate of our politicians pay and benefits be tied to the health of the nation happen over night, just that the idea be considered and passed along in hopes that eventually enough support builds to work on putting it into action. Maybe the few that read it will consider it, more than likely they won't.
@Professor McDuck I do. And I disagree entirely with the premise that they need to do anything at all to 'fix' the problem. Everything they've 'fixed' has only brought more financial debt, dependency and promoted the corporate corruption you seem to pretend is the only problem. Big Business does bear a large portion of the blame, but their greed can be equally distributed between Big Government and Big Unions as well. But we bear the most blame for allowing it all to happen.
7 Answers
- Debra HLv 71 decade agoFavorite Answer
Its a very good idea, and one the politicians never seem to come up with. they want us all to tighten our belts, well they should lead by example.
Most of these fools in congress and the senate are millionaires anyway.. why should they even be paid. They just love the glory.
We should fire them all and replace them with working robots.. same result!
- Anonymous1 decade ago
Please read the U.S. Constitution. The President's salary may not be decreased during his term of office. The salary of a federal judge may not be decreased either. Amending the Constitution requires the approval of 2/3 of each House of Congress and then ratification by 3/4 of the States. Good luck getting that done! There have been thousands of bills introduced in Congress proposing amendments to the Constitution, and only 33 amendments have been approved by Congress. Of those 33, only 27 have been ratified by the states, and the first 10 were ratified in 1791.
- Ralph BLv 71 decade ago
Part of your question included, "...cut politicians..."
I am sure some dweeb construed that to be violence.
Rather than cutting all those salaries which doesn't amount to much, roll back the tax cuts for the 2% wealthy in this country in the amount of $10,000,000,000 a year.
- geozLv 41 decade ago
I like your idea. I haven't checked the math, but everyone could do with a little less. I would start with gov't contractors like Halliburton.
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- Anonymous1 decade ago
highly dubious at best.... do you really want to REDUCE the pay of the people in the government during such a critical economic time? perhaps an increase in pay is due, these people are working hard to fix the economy that was caused by greedy people getting tax cuts.
- goodluckwithhatLv 71 decade ago
Who knows? I've seen my stuff deleted without a reason and other questionable stuff stay.
