Elected officials' salaries

[rcgreen]

These saleries are not high when compared to the private sector for a comparable position

Maybe some of those "private sector" guys are making too much
also.

[Mahakaal]

According to Business Week, the average CEO made 42 times the average hourly worker's pay in 1980, 85 times in 1990 and a staggering 531 times in 2000. (Check back for 2001 numbers in mid-April.)

Source http://www.aflcio.org/paywatch/pay.htm

[dspeidel]

I agree with Owen76. I am not alarmed by the salaries of congress I do however fell they should stop rising.

A true catch-22 IMHO. If you reduce salaries, you increase temptation to generate 'income' via other means, i.e. influence peddling to the highest bidder. But by the same token I feel that congress is over-paid for the amount of service they provide to the American PEOPLE.

-allenb1963. I am more concerned with the neglect the Nation's school system is recieving. The school system raises the people who will take care of me when I am old an enfeebled. Congress salaries should stay the same (or conceivable lower) but teachers should recieve signficantly better money. I am not a teacher but I feel the system needs work -but to justify the costs perhaps school should be in session longer. After all if you look at what a teacher is paid divided by the number of days it pretty high value. Perhaps I'm a cynic cause I don't see any real chance of it changing anytime soon.

Cheers,

-D

[allenb1963]

Duncan....not to argue with what you said, but exactly what was the reasoning for the comments about teachers salaries in a thread on congressional pay? I'll concede that they are grossly overworked and underpaid but I just can't figure out what part of left field that one came from....

[punchthebaby]

seems that the money we give them should be closely monitored. a local representative in my state is under fire for putting out ad campaigns about how she wants people to call her and tell her problems: apparently those ads cost a lot of taxpayer money. I find it refreshing that the woman (Teresa Forcier, State Rep, Pennsylvania) is actually telling people she's there for them (but some argue she's only doing this to get re-elected.. we'll see about that after the tally)

My solution would be to keep track of how the money is spent: Congress doesn't deserve any more than a middle-manager at a big company, but they should have a budget dedicated solely to adigin constituents. And at the end of the year, some function of what's left will be taken from their payroll, since they're obviously not deserving of that kinda money if they have very much left over.

Equal representation without fornication, that's all I ask.

[owen76]

Would school in session longer actually cause more and better learning? My state calculates school funding by the number of days students attend class. So they are real hard ass about attendance, not for increased learning benefits but for increased monetary benefits.
Besides, the college year is shorter than the public school year and I feel I have learned 10 times the amount here than in public school (K-12).

As far as Congress, they can be pressured into doing what we want if their seat gets hot enough. Public pressure works wonders. We should be worried about the ones we can't control, like cabinet members,judges,city managers and other non-elected officials. They cause more harm because they don't have any obligation to the public.

[Chuck56]

for doing nothing, and the teachers want more money to not teach. Which group is right?

We elect Congress to represent us. As representatives of "we, the people," they pass a law permitting themselves to grant raises -- to themselves. If we don't like it, then there should be a nationwide referendum to force them to include their pay raises on the ballot every national election year. That way, every presidential election, WE vote whether they deserve a raise for the 'fine' work they've done.

As for teachers, throwing more money at them isn't going to help. I've heard too many times in the past couple of decades, "pay us more so we can do a better job." In most other occupations, it's "do a better job and you'll get better pay." They're putting the cart before the horse.

Before I give them more money, I want to see that they're capable of doing the job. I'm not concinced public school teachers today know how to teach. Compare the results of a public school education with that of parochial schools, still taught mostly by UNpaid Nuns.

The public schools say the SAT test scores are rising again. They aren't rising. They're lowering the curve to meet the average. Grade the SATs and the other tests on the same curve used in, say, 1960 and see how well Dick and Jane fare.

Nope, don't pay the teachers a buck in raises until our kids can do at least as well as the kids from 40 yrs ago.