gavinfielder
DP Veteran
- Joined
- Sep 24, 2012
- Messages
- 1,748
- Reaction score
- 756
- Location
- Sacramento, CA, USA
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Libertarian - Left
It's already hinky that congress determines its own paycheck, but also that as soon as people are elected and won't be up for re-election, they suddenly have no pressing need to actually represent their constituents. I think citizens should have the right to not pay a portion of their taxes that go to their representatives' salary. Specifically, a deduction would be calculated based on the representatives' salary (a citizen's own representative only) divided by the number of taxpayers in the district. This creates instant accountability, and by virtue of transparency and the ability to directly make a decision would engage more citizens in the political process.
I think accountability is the most important consideration here, so I wouldn't mind if the base pay (salary at 100%) was increased at the same time, but even if not, I don't think it's an issue. It's obvious that representatives have more business expenses than the average citizen, but I'm not entirely sure a $200K salary is what I'd like to be paying congress--especially now. On the other hand, if I know someone to represent me well, I think I would pay them, and I think many other people still would as well.
This seems like common sense to me. If our representatives claim to represent the public and have public support solely by being elected, they should put their money with their mouth is and actually see if that's the case. This would also remove the problem of having no good options in elections.
It's not a full tax-choice proposal (deciding where all your taxes go is absurdly unfeasible) but something that should actually be implementable, and probably be the most effective in creating accountability and give the public direct power over their government and its policies, as they should rightly have.
I think accountability is the most important consideration here, so I wouldn't mind if the base pay (salary at 100%) was increased at the same time, but even if not, I don't think it's an issue. It's obvious that representatives have more business expenses than the average citizen, but I'm not entirely sure a $200K salary is what I'd like to be paying congress--especially now. On the other hand, if I know someone to represent me well, I think I would pay them, and I think many other people still would as well.
This seems like common sense to me. If our representatives claim to represent the public and have public support solely by being elected, they should put their money with their mouth is and actually see if that's the case. This would also remove the problem of having no good options in elections.
It's not a full tax-choice proposal (deciding where all your taxes go is absurdly unfeasible) but something that should actually be implementable, and probably be the most effective in creating accountability and give the public direct power over their government and its policies, as they should rightly have.