What If? All politicians are forced to live on the median standard of their state income, their children must go to public school and lobbying is banned.

[Free-Stater 101]

Exactly what it says! NOB (Nice Omnipotent Bastard) has decided he has had enough of politicians being greedy and distant from the common American and thus decides to level the playing field.

To do this NOB thinks three steps are prudent.

1. He has made it law in the U.S. now that outside of essential business travel expenses a politicians income is capped at the rate of the state median income.
2. He has made a law which bars politicians families from attending anything but public school while an office is being administered.
3. He has banned lobbying and paid for speeches.

All of these laws are backed by insanely high penalties and furthermore they will be backed by the U.S. populace overwhelmingly making repeal impossible.

Do things get bett or worse?

 

[Bear Ribs]

Not much change. Most of what politicians make isn't direct income anyway, it's "Campaign Contributions," or generous employment and gifts for their family members (John McCain famously had 94% of his wealth come from "spouse owned assets").

There's also a big question here as to what happens if the politician is already rich, and earns most of their income off of non-political assets, such as Senator Jay Rockefeller drawing from the massive Rockefeller family fortune, or Gary Miller’s California real estate portfolio.

It currently costs close to ten million to campaign competitively for a position in congress so limiting their income won't change that, because they have to either already be rich or be able to attract fat stacks of cash as campaign contributions to even run.

 

[Largo]

You can no more ban lobbying than you can ban the Sun from rising in the east tomorrow. And frankly, I take the position that our federal politicians are underpaid. CEOs get paid millions of dollars at minimum for the work they do. Why shouldn't the President and Congressmen get something in that ballpark?

 

[The Whispering Monk]

would banning anything everything besides individual donations work?

No corporate donations, no money from unions, no super pacs, etc...

 

[ShieldWife]

Only rich people will be able to run for office.

People have the situation reversed, to get less greedy people in political office, you need to start paying them a lot more.

 

[Hlaalu Agent]

You can no more ban lobbying than you can ban the Sun from rising in the east tomorrow. And frankly, I take the position that our federal politicians are underpaid. CEOs get paid millions of dollars at minimum for the work they do. Why shouldn't the President and Congressmen get something in that ballpark?

You have to regulate lobbying, and keep it under public scrutiny. If you can't stop it, you might as well reign it in and curb its worst excesses- and open it up to more segments of the population...

 

[The Whispering Monk]

What if the rich were restricted to only donating the maximum individual donation to their own campaigns?

And then the Federal government provides the only housing available to congress-critters: Barracks housing at a nearby military installation. Then they'll have acces to the DFac, gyms, etc... That way they live like the military does!

 

[bintananth]

What if the rich were restricted to only donating the maximum individual donation to their own campaigns?

Things would get much worse because the few honest* wealthy politicians out there probably wouldn't be able to run for high office and elections would be even more of a popularity contest than they already are.

* Like Ross Perot

 

[Airedale260]

You can no more ban lobbying than you can ban the Sun from rising in the east tomorrow. And frankly, I take the position that our federal politicians are underpaid. CEOs get paid millions of dollars at minimum for the work they do. Why shouldn't the President and Congressmen get something in that ballpark?

They don't do all that much in the grand scheme of things -the civil service does the real legwork and considering the salaries and benefits they get, they are not really underpaid. And Congress hasn't actually passed a budget law since *1997*. Everything since is continuing resolutions or reconciliations.

Furthermore, Congress gets pensions, and most of them don't make careers out of service in Congress. Most. So usually they aren't really hard up for income, although over the past decade or so the cost of living in DC has skyrocketed due to all the money flowing in.

Ex-presidents, meanwhile, actually draw federal salaries (same level as Cabinet secretaries). That was because Harry Truman was the one guy not to be wealthy or be able to draw on a military pension.

Also, CEOs don't just start off in their career paths making huge amounts of money; they had to do a lot of work climbing career ladders. And even today guys like Jeff Bezos don't actually draw big salaries, since their net worth is in stocks that they can't actually cash much of without wrecking the value of their company.

You have to regulate lobbying, and keep it under public scrutiny. If you can't stop it, you might as well reign it in and curb its worst excesses- and open it up to more segments of the population...

Problem is there's this thing called the First Amendment, so any attempts at regulating political speech are met with strict scrutiny by the courts. There are stronger laws that cover the civil service, but regulating the ability of people to petition elected officials is a very different animal.