Congressman Upset His $174,000 Annual Salary Not Enough To Live 'Decently' In D.C.

[jmowreader]

16. He's right. You know it, but you don't want to admit it.

The kinds of people we need as our elected representatives can make more than $174,000 per year fairly easily, and they can't afford (or don't want to) take a pay cut. I know elected service is an honor, but you can't stick "honor" in an envelope and send it to a mortgage company...at least if you want to keep the house.

If you pay Walmart-store-manager money you are going to get Walmart-store-manager-caliber people. Simple as that. Walmart store managers are perfectly nice people, but there's a reason they run a store instead of a corporation. The end result is you get three classes of congressmen: very rich people, who go to Washington to legislate their tax bills out of existence; ideologues, who figure working for peanuts for a couple of years would be fine if it means they can get rid of all the social programs they don't like; and guys auditioning for K Street.