Thursday, April 24, 2008

Our Tax Dollars at Work

I'm with Mark Shea on this one:

I think we would be well served if most of the executive and legislative branches went without public funding, for the very simple reason that the vast majority of our ruling class are millionaires who don't need my money, but confiscate it from me anyway when I could really use it myself. I'd also love to know that I am not paying for keeping Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter wealthier than they need to be.

Do *you* think we should be paying for Bill Clinton's retirement? Does this seem like a sound use of your confiscated money?



I might be able to be persuaded that elected officials should be paid minimium wage, but if it's such an "honor" to "serve" the people (read: us), I think there's a stronger case to be made that they should be paid a salary of exactly nothing.

2 comments:

The Dutchman said...

When only the rich can afford to run for office or serve in office, then doesn't government become the preserve of wealth?

John Jansen said...

Dutchman—

Seems to me the current de facto situation is that government is already the preserve of wealth.

I'll freely admit that the idea of eliminating all salaries for all elected officials (which, btw, after reading the comments in the post I linked to, I've found out that Mark Shea doesn't actually support — d'oh!) is merely a pipe dream.

Somewhat more realistically, I'd settle for term limits in both houses of Congress.