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Comment by x0x0 | Hacker News Reader

Pelosi doesn't get paid enough. She's one of the leaders of a country with a $23T economy and a $4.8T federal budget. She maintains houses in two different (very) high COL areas, and has a punishing work and travel schedule.

We'd be shocked at an exec in a round C company, helping lead 100+ people, who didn't make more than that.

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Pelosi doesn't get paid enough is a surface of the sun level hot take.

It really isn't. If your goal was to make investing while in congress less appealing, you'd pass laws, yes, but also pay people more. AoC had made the point before that if you make congressional pay too low, it becomes only feasible for the already-wealthy to maintain a political career. Also note that being a congressperson has weird extra expenses, you usually need to have two homes, one in DC and one in your home state, so expenses will naturally be higher than average.

(this is one of the reasons that, e.g. Trump claiming to donate his presidential salary was frowned upon: Sure it sounds nice at first, but it implies that either he'll profit off of the presidency in other ways, or if that becomes a norm, that only those who can afford to donate their salary should become president)

Because when people pass a certain wealth threshold they just say, "that's enough money, I am satisfied."

I mean...yes, many people do exactly that.

"Trump claiming to donate his presidential salary was frowned upon"

Literally every recent president has done this. It only implies that he has enough money to live on and doesn't need a salary. If he hadn't donated it the media would have exploded. I'll add that to the list of instances where people would hate him no matter the decisions he made.

> Literally every recent president has done this. It only implies that he has enough money to live on and doesn't need a salary.

Obama and Bush didn't. They donated some, but not all, and they certainly din't make it an aspect of their campaign. As far as I can tell, the last president to donate their entire salary was Kennedy.

Um, if the goal was to make investing while in Congress unappealing I would just ban that. Index funds only. Don't like it? Don't run for re election.

Being in government isn’t meant to be a lifelong career. People should only serve a few terms and leave.

You're right, her burden is too high. We need to expand the house of representatives to lessen her burden and increase democracy. She also should use her extreme power to help lower the cost of housing for her constituents and residents of the Capitol area.

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