Liberals and progressives are far too naive in their assessment of the human condition. We wish all of our leaders to be Gandhi and Mother Theresa clones with ambitions only to serve our interests. Think about what we are asking of our representatives and then honestly try to justify the salary we pay them with no guarantee of tenure. These are the people who mold the economic reality for hundreds of millions of us with their power of the purse. They decide what should be legal and illegal in our actions and interactions. They set the stage for our relationships with other nations of the world and they decide what initiatives/projects get funded with public money and which need to go begging from the private sector.

Their jobs should be the highest paying positions in our nation, and we should expect excellence, but forgive honest mistakes in the process of trying. I can’t imagine hiring a qualified candidate for a similar job in the private sector for less than multiples of millions. Sometimes you really do get what you pay for, and if the reward is high enough to attract people who are actually qualified to do all that we expect it may also be high enough to prevent them from risking being fired. Not too many of our public servants couldn’t do better in the private sector, and usually do when they leave government. Considering that we literally pull the money out of our collective backsides is there any reason not to compensate the positions commensurate with expectations?