Congressional members (House and Senate) earn $174k/year, which is rather less than leadership of comparable scope is paid in private industry.

Of course, having powerful people who control trillions of spending be not be very well paid themselves above the table has...myriad exciting ways to go wrong.

As a taxpayer I'd rather government leadership paid extremely well and heavily fund GSA audits to ensure strong oversight (and jail time) for those that abuse the position. Fun fact: GSA saves taxpayers $10 for every $1 spent.