Do you support "merit pay" for Congress?

[draft_mario_cuomo]

One Democratic presidential candidate and other high-ranking politicians such as George W. Bush, Jeb Bush, and Multiple Choice Mitt Romney have embraced the concept of "merit pay" for others (teachers in the cases of Jeb Bush, Romney, and Obama; federal workers in W's case). How about "merit pay", that is paying people based on their "performance" for Congress? Let's give the most pay to "good" senators/representatives, mid-level pay for the "average" ones, and the minimum pay for "bad" members of Congress.

The first questions about this are how exactly performance would be defined and who would measure them. Of course, such concerns are not a big deal to the politicians who propose it for others. Let's avoid that issue for now and discuss the basic concept.

It would be interesting to link the pay of some politicians who love to tout "merit pay" to their performance relative to their peers. Of course, some may not want to be measured against the likes of Ted Kennedy or John Conyers. ;)

[Horse with no Name]

1. Merit pay eh?

I fully support merit pay if it is coupled with demerit pay--such as when the American people demand our troops come home and nobody does anything about it--knock every one of the bastards down to minimum wage until they do the job they were sent to do--represent the American people, not feather their own nests.

[AlGore-08.com]

2. Who would decide what warranted merit pay?

A big part of the problem now is that the folks who benefit from the system get to decide the rules of the system. Pay is not so much an issue (most of them know how bad giving themselves a raise looks), but the election laws and corruption laws have no teeth because the Congress decides what the penalties should be, and what should be illegal.

[draft_mario_cuomo]

6. That is a good question but Obama, Bush*, J, Bush, and Romney don't care about it

Nor do others who support the concept. The biggest problems with merit pay are defining merit and trying to find a magic bullet fair way to evaluate it. Of course, these individuals do not care about this when calling for merit pay for others.

How about going by bills passed, with bonuses going to important or controversial bills? Surely if we can implement it for teachers or federal workers we can find ways to do the same for Congress.

[CTLawGuy]

3. they have that

if you've done a good job, you get the $140k or whatever it is a year for the next 2/6 years. every 2 years/6 years you get reviewed.

if you've done a bad job, you get paid nothing from then on.

[draft_mario_cuomo]

7. That isn't true

Aside from the leadership, all other members of each chamber get paid the same. For instance, a freshman senator who does nothing in the senate gets the same salary that Ted Kennedy does.

[ixion]

4. I support a swift kick in the butt for congress, and no pay whatsoever

it shouldn't be a joy ride, it shouldn't be profitable or pleasurable. It should not be a power position, but something more akin to jury duty. You're not acting to build your 'career' in politics, you're in We the people's house conducting our business. If you want a career with good pay, go to the private sector.

BS power and pay is part of what has created the environment we have today: the pols worry more about their careers than actually doing something worthwhile with the TRILLIONS of dollars we've given them in the form of endless taxation. Oh, and they're always more than happy to vote themselves a nice juicy raise, at our expense. Gee, I wish I could be guaranteed 10 percent or better cost-of-living increase, just for showing up.

Just my two cents...

[Totally Committed]

5. Uh, no....

We already pay them out of our taxes to support our welfare and our wishes. They don't do that. So we are to pay them more to get them to do the job for which they applied, and now don't do? I don't think so. I say throw every stinking one of the bums out -- Democrats AND Republicans -- and find those who will work for the wages they swore their oaths on.

I'm sick of being held hostage to the blackmail of "but what if.........?" F*ck them all!

TC

[draft_mario_cuomo]

8. No. We would have a sliding scale for pay

Just as many of these people like to propose for others. We could do this in a way that leaves the overall bill for congressional pay the same, or even reduces it, but leaves the carrot of having pay higher than today's level for "good" members of Congress. We could control costs based on a limit for "good" members. Obviously, there have to be winners, losers, and people in between under this scheme--just as there are when merit pay is applied to teachers or federal workers.