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Comment by roncesvalles | Hacker News Reader

But then how will they make money? They only make a $174k base salary and a 15% cap on how much they can earn from other employment sources. I'm only saying this semi sarcastically. Often the senator's aides earn more than the senators themselves.

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Just disallow any personal investment choices. Either they have to invest in an index fund, a mutual fund, or have a manager who makes independent investment decisions.

They could even do the sort of things corporate execs at publicly traded companies do, and fill out forms well in advance about future investment purchases, to avoid the ability to time purchases to inside information.

> Often the senator's aides earn more than the senators themselves.

Fine. People motivated by money should take jobs other than sitting in Congress.

Many if not most intelligent and skilled people are highly motivated by money, not just in pursuit of material comfort but security for their spouse, offspring, and extended family.

I am skeptical of an arrangement where those incentives are at odds with care for critical infrastructure like our political process.

That being said, the current arrangement makes it vastly more profitable to destabilize the economy and sell short than stabilize it and buy long, which is clearly unacceptable to me.

Not paying officials enough leads to bribery and corruption. Take away their avenue for insider trading, but let them make a healthy living off it in my opinion.

Do you not think 174k is "enough"?

~Everybody is motivated by money or else not motivated at all. Money is potential energy for essentially any objective you might have, whether that's developing new tech or donating to charity. By cutting money out, you just select for the subset of people who are more motivated by power or status or who already have more money than they know what to do with.

It should be obvious that there's a balance between wanting enough money to live comfortably and wanting as much money as possible. Government jobs should be good enough for the former.

Senators should be paid three times the lower quartile wage.

I don't think people that are electable are usually the kind of people that should be in congress. If you have the kind of personality and allegiances to be representing the common man, you can't get elected due to how that process works.

Sortition makes way more sense to me for something like a congress. You just end up with a random selection of the population.

Agreed. One thing I appreciate about New Hampshire’s state congress is their pay is fixed at $100/year.

Great way to ensure only the independently wealthy can participate in politics.

Or they have side gigs. Many of the founders of our nation had side gigs[1].

New Hampshire is number one freest state[2], 20th place for GDP per capita[3], 8th happiest state in the nation[4], and second-safest state in the nation[5]. They must be doing something right.

[1] https://theturnaroundauthority.com/2014/07/02/professions-of...

[2] https://www.freedominthe50states.org/overall/new-hampshire

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ...

[4] https://wallethub.com/edu/happiest-states/6959

[5] https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/crime-and-c...

The fact senators have been able to stay in the senate for 20+ years, means they are probably making plenty of money. We need another round of FBI bribe stings to clean things up

It would be nice if government officials had to do a national index fund (Vanguard or similar) stock purchase plan along the lines of employee stock purchasing in private companies.

Yeah, I kind of agree with your semi-sarcastic take. While that salary is well above the US average, the fact is that they almost certainly don't make enough to own or rent a home in DC, and a second home in their constituency. It all but ensures that there can't be an honest member of congress, unless they feel like sleeping in their office.

What can Congresscritters expense? I'd assume they need to travel between their home state and DC frequently. Would lodging for work where they do not have a home be expensable somewhere?

Isn't the solution to needing two homes to do the job for the government to provide that as a work expense rather than permitting funky financial hijinks?

It’s better than it used to be. Since 2023 House members can expense up to $30k / year in travel costs and lodging in DC. Prior to that, they had to eat those costs which were estimated to average around $28k per year based on number of days in session.

Poor unfortunate souls.

The 15% cap likely only applies to IRS-reportable gains on the congressperson's personal tax return. That unfortunately doesn't preclude insider trading by spouses, within IRA accounts, or within wholly or partially owned c-corporations controlled by the congressperson or a close family member.

We need a federal law that says: "the definition of material non-public information (MNPI) is extended to mean any non-public information those in federal, state, or local government are privy to that may affect securities prices, and individuals in or adjacent to government are equally subject to prosecution for trading on it".

Ban the trading and upping the base pay would probably improve accessibility.

Well they could always set policies where 174k is a good living salary...

People should not be getting into politics for the money. I want senators who are doing it because they want to see a change in the world.

They want to see a change! In theirs account balance. Its still part of the world. Their world.

If you can't make it on 175k you might need to go to rehab.

Blind trusts.

What’s the ceiling ?

https://www.quiverquant.com/congresstrading/politician/Nancy...

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