Why do you assume they would stop gathering money from side channels? You would need to tie the increase to a prohibition against side/back channel money.
Both seems highly unlikely to me.
Both seems highly unlikely to me.
If you pay them $1M salary, then a 50k donation/bribe/dinner is less convincing.
This isn’t going to stop it, but perfect shouldn’t be the enemy of better.
Another is assuming that the price to buy support is fixed and the coffers are limited. The price might be $50k because perhaps that is the sweet spot on your target, but support and donations will go higher if needed and the special interest is motivated to garner support.
There are less "causes" that have the ability to fund a $300k bribe so even with that argument, we're still better off. (And it costs those causes more, bigger paper trails etc.)