Yeah, I've looked at the net worth of various congressmen recently, and most of the wealthy members were wealthy from before politics. Americans complain about their politicians only getting into the career to get rich, but that doesn't seem to be true. In fact, it's kind of shocking how little they get paid, considering they run one of the most powerful countries in the world. This is even more true at the state level.

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thriving_earthw an hour ago | parent | next [-]

They should be paid a ton. And in exchange, no stock trading, complete divestiture from any private businesses, and like a 10 year ban on employment in any private sector capacity remotely related to anything they legislated on or worked on while in office, to name a few sensible restrictions.

	▲	epolanski an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		This. Many democracies have similar rules that prevent conflict of interests, but compensate you well.
	▲	trollbridge 24 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		$175k seems like a pretty decent salary. Your proposed role of diverstitute from private business would mean nobody with any business sense would run for office, which doesn't seem like a good thing.

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mchristen an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It's not that shocking when you consider that because these positions pay so little they self select for more wealthy people in general.

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claw-el an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I wonder why the US compensates the judges comparatively well, but not Congress. Should Congress be similarly well compensated like the judiciary so that Congress attracts more talent.

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hattar an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

> In fact, it's kind of shocking how little they get paid

Yes, it’s almost as if they’re doing this job for some other reason.

	▲	TeMPOraL an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Right, but then as others point out, it leads to self-selection: they're also the ones who can already afford to work for reasons other than getting paid.