It was like a Jet Li movie in Congress last week as the two parties one-upped each other with bits of political jujitsu. Most everyone now knows about the GOP's last-minute gambit to hold a minimum wage hike as ransom for repeal of the estate tax. (The measure passed the House on Friday and faces an uncertain future this week in the Senate.) What's been nearly forgotten is that the GOP's move was instigated in the first place by a similarly elegant play by Democrats, who had tried to force a vote to raise the minimum wage by tying it to congressional pay increases. The disparity between the fate of congressional salaries (up by $31,000 since 1997) and that of the minimum wage over the last decade had presented the Dems with an almost too-good-to-be-true opportunity for high-polling populism. Too bad the Republicans out-gamed them in the end through sheer majority force and re-focused discussion on their brazen estate tax ploy.
It was like a Jet Li movie in Congress last week as the two parties one-upped each other with bits of political jujitsu. Most everyone now knows about the GOP's last-minute gambit to hold a minimum wage hike as ransom for repeal of the estate tax. (The measure passed the House on Friday and faces an uncertain future this week in the Senate.) What's been nearly forgotten is that the GOP's move was instigated in the first place by a similarly elegant play by Democrats, who had tried to force a vote to raise the minimum wage by tying it to congressional pay increases. The disparity between the fate of congressional salaries (up by $31,000 since 1997) and that of the minimum wage over the last decade had presented the Dems with an almost too-good-to-be-true opportunity for high-polling populism. Too bad the Republicans out-gamed them in the end through sheer majority force and re-focused discussion on their brazen estate tax ploy.
At any rate, the jockeying offers an occasion to explore the perennially vexing issue of congressional pay. There's no disputing that the minimum wage's 54-year low against the average wage is an embarrassment. But the average pay of congressmen and women -- $165,200 a year -- is, in fact, also a problem. It may indeed be true that Congress shouldn't get a raise till America does, but both are overdue for a pretty sharp salary hike.
That, of course, isn't a terrifically popular proposition, particularly during the current moment of GOP domination, congressional corruption, and general government worthlessness. The Medicare prescription drug bill, the energy bill, the Iraq war -- these are hardly the sort of achievements that merit a raise. But sometimes you have to survey your workforce and realize that you need a better caliber of applicant and fewer incentives to stray. The question here isn't one of performance or rewards, but how to extract the best legislative outcomes from an underperforming institution. And a pay hike -- if used as the carrot for a set of severe ethical and campaign finance reforms -- wouldn't be a bad first step.
The question here is why congress folk become so corrupt. Intrinsic proclivity towards screwing over the republic? Maybe. But I'd guess the mechanism is a bit less dramatic than that. Washington, D.C., is the fifth most expensive American city in which to live. Newly elected members of Congress arrive and find that the costs of living here plus retaining a residence -- and often, family -- in their home district are a bit imposing. Two mortgages, two furnished homes, and all the rest.
Even worse is the human instinct to match your peers. As the Brookings Institution's congressional expert Thomas Mann told me, “one of the problems we've seen is that as their former colleagues move into lucrative jobs and their former staffers do the same, they come to believe they ought to have the same lifestyle and look for ways to achieve it outside of their own salaries.”
Congressmen and women, in other words, enter a world populated by the rich and the wealthy -- their friends are lobbyists, lawyers, and former congressmen and staffers who've left the public dime for massively lucrative jobs on K Street. It's fine to say this sphere shouldn't influence their tastes, but it inevitably does, leaving them accustomed to a standard of living their salaries can't come anywhere near supporting. But the lobbyists -- excuse me, their friends -- can take them out for fine dinners, or subsidize a “fact-finding mission” to a posh destination, or offer large loans at heavily subsidized rates, or otherwise augment their lifestyles through any number of shady, unstated quid pro quos.
None of this excuses corruption, but it does explain why it's essentially inevitable. And the question for all of us must be: Do we continue to hope geneticists will breed a crop of ascetic congresscritters, or do we start reworking the incentives and restructuring conditions in order to better prevent corruption on the public dime? Serious campaign finance reform, for instance, would cut down on quite a bit of corporate influence. And a new raft of ethics reforms may well eliminate certain avenues for untoward vote-buying. But it's nevertheless true that the full man eats less, and elected representatives with luxurious salaries and fewer monetary concerns would, assumedly, be tougher to buy -- they'd lack the personal incentives for corruption. (James Carville and Paul Begala unveiled a reform proposal based on this line of logic earlier in the year.)
Beyond the corruption concerns, the drop in esteem for public service is worrisome. Currently, Congress is one of the least respected institutions in the country, just barely beating “Big Business” and “HMO's” in the public mind. Their salaries, which are at a historic low, are merely part of that trend. But with public disgust at such historic levels, is it any wonder so few good people enter the system? And with fundraising as grueling and unseemly a process as it currently is, can it be a surprise that so few of them succeed?
That may be fine for conservatives, who see their ideology confirmed every time a good man grows corrupt in office. But for liberals who believe in the nobility of public service and the possibility of the government to do -- and be -- good, restoring trust and faith in our shared institutions should be a priority. A true overhaul of campaign finance, coupled with ethics reforms and salaries commensurate with national preeminence, may not be a bad way to start. A new compact between the American people and their leaders -- one in which we both expect their excellence and promise to reward it -- may break this dispiriting cycle of mediocrity and disappointment. And even if that meant paying each representative in gold bullion, it would be a bargain.
Ezra Klein is a Prospect writing fellow.
