Americans Desreve Better Politicians In Washington?

In a recent article titled "Americans Deserve Better Politicians In Washington, Dr. Thomas Sowell, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute suggested that we pay our Congressmen and Senators a million dollars a year in salary. Why? Because according to him we deserve a lot better people in Congress than what we have.

He goes on to say that:
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quote:
"The cost of paying every member of Congress a million dollars a year is absolutely trivial compared to the vast amounts of the taxpayers' money wasted by cheap politicians doing things to get themselves re-elected"

And he says:

quote:
"The cost of paying every member of Congress a million dollars a year is absolutely trivial compared to the vast amounts of the taxpayers' money wasted by cheap politicians doing things to get themselves re-elected"
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The real problem we have in our elected politics is not corruption--it is the demise of the concept of "service" as a worthy ideal in our society. We have become a self serving and self obsorbed population. And our elected politicians mirror this back to us by their self centered actions. Unless we are willing to pad their pocket books, we don't have a voice in our "elects" agenda. I recently read where one high ranking congressman from California was caught accepting bribes. He had been a former war hero and had gained the publics trust. With tear filled eyes he stood before news camaras aplogizing for his mis-deeds. One has to wonder how many of those tears were actually being shed because he had been caught not because he was sorry and repentant.

George Washington, who took pride in his self-control, lost his temper completely when someone told him that a decision he was going to make could cost him re-election as President. He blew up at the suggestion that he wanted to be President, rather than serving as a duty when he would rather be back home.

Power is such a dangerous thing that ideally it should be wielded by people who don't want to use power, who would rather be doing something else, but who are willing to serve a certain number of years as a one-time duty, preferably at the end of a career doing something else.

Yes--Yodi, I'm afraid we are stuck with what we have until we change the image in the mirror of what society looks like. Until then, we will reap what we sowed.