[clairity]

$180K puts you well within the top 20% in income. pay is not the problem. in fact, trying to solve politician quality by increasing pay would likely worsen the problem by misaligning incentives even more. also the assumption that the best and the brightest are managers at tech companies is amusingly naive.

[monocasa]

That's for a literal federal Senator. Even mayors don't make near that in the general case.

[djrogers]

The mayor of Long Beach makes >180k in pay and benefits: https://patch.com/california/longbeach-ca/long-beach-mayor-r...

[monocasa]

He makes $143k + medical and pension.

Those numbers are nutty, I know 22yos that make more than that.

[ncmncm]

But how much opportunity do they have for graft and corruption? Most of such money does not actually go through the mayor's bank account; instead, it is directed to people who then provide favors, e.g. employing his associates. Informal exchange of favors is the lifeblood of politicians.

[monocasa]

Maybe if we paid a decent salary, we wouldn't get the bottom feeders who are only in the job for grift and corruption opportunities.

[ncmncm]

You don't seem to be getting what motivates people to go into politics. They are not looking for ways to avoid involvement in corruption. The opportunity to be involved in the favors economy is most of the job's appeal. Paying them more would just cost more.