Tie Congressional Pay To Performance

Brian Sullivan: Your idea to hold Congress to performance standards is a good idea but it should include performance standards to have ZERO budget deficits and a great reduction of the national debt. That is where the real trillions of dollars are at! It should also include term limits for Congress members. The documented history of the members shows that most of the corruption, deceit and scandals are the result of long term incumbencies of it's members. If term limits are lawful for the President of the U.S., it would be perfect for the Congress! It would minimize the corruption by all our members of Congress who took an oath to protect the Constitution and country.

It is, by now, apparent that corruption in Congress lies at the heart of our financial mess. The same wall street privileged (owners and managers of Citigroup, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Bros, AIG etc) who have received billions of taxpayer funds have consistently made huge payments to influential members of Congress (campaign contributions) in order to insure that: (a)Congress did not regulate the issuance of the toxic subprime mortgage bundled securities; (b)Congress did not require the rating agencies (Moodys, Fitch and Standard & Poors) to be paid for their ratings by the buyer of the securities, rather than by the issuing bank who directly benefited from the fraudulent AAA ratings. Congress deserves the extremely low approval ratings that they have received from the public. However, polls and approval ratings mean nothing to the person who has no moral character. Unfortunately, far too many members of Congress fall into this category. Our system provides too much incentive to bribe influential members of Congress, and too much temptation by those members to be bribed. The people will have to impose term limits on Congress in order to "encourage" their honesty and responsibility. We can accomplish this through the referendum process in each state. It is not impossible. Its time has come.

I've been writing my senators and congressmen that they should have an immediate 50% pay cut and add'l 50% annual cuts until things get back on track. Non of them have gotten back to me yet. Why everyone worries so much about the private sector is beyond me. The CEO's are victims just like the rest of us. How can they possibly plan effectively with the rampant instability lately? It's all just a crap shoot. Oh! And the height of ironies is about Cuomo. He ought to look in the mirror since he was HUD secretary back during the 90's and took great pleasure in cracking the whip on Fanny and Freddy in order to push quota's on low cost loans. Can't we get some claw-back on this key-contributor? Why doesn't he limit his own pay?! If they ever elect him Governor I getting the heck out of this state for good. Don Kamp Canajoharie, NY.

[...] « Tie Congressional Pay To Performance [...]

Every indicator points to government intervention as the culprit in this and most major economic disasters. The free market will adjust markets to their proper levels if left alone, outside forces (government intervention) invariably create disasters such as this. Carter and Clinton set us up for this and Pelosi, Reid, Frank, Dodd and friends carried it out. I think its a fantastic idea having proper accountability for the culprits.

Great idea, but we know Congress will never accept responsibility for their own actions. The entire bunch should be thrown out on their ears!!

Great idea, Brian. If only we could hold those guys to the same standards they want to impose on everyone else. I hope this moronic idea of Cuomo and Frank doesn't get past their pea brains or we really are in trouble. What double standards! It's high time we hold these government officials accountable and NO PAY RAISES until they start performing in the best interest of the American people!

Is it possible for these conversations to start from the real beginning? The beginning was the moment all the big corporations (Fortune 500 companies) in America secured life time employment as CEOs of their corporations. This was accomplished by writting into the by-laws rules which disenfranchise the shareholders. Shareholders are no longer able to fire them, While at the same time having a board of directors which are friendly to the CEOs. The effect is no CEOs will ever be fired, regardless of their performance. The next step in the process was to guarantee a big payday regardless of the their performance. Excessive pay came through the compensation committees. These committees set the pay for the CEO. The members on the committee for Chase's compensation committee know that Chase has members who will be on Citibank's compensation. Therefore, Chase will inflate the pay for Citibank and it's termination package, while Citibank will inflate the pay for Chase and it's termination package. Now to justify this craziness, the company must at first show an outstanding profit. The bigger the risk the bigger the return, we hope. If the risk doesn't pan out, no problem we get paid anyway.

Not that far fetched an idea - and term limits we can have immediately with no getting around it by doing 2 terms bk 2 bk, skipping a term, then repeating. One other idea we should adopt from the private sector is to eliminate the bottom 5-10% of performers in government civil service jobs annually. Who really did get fired or demoted at the SEC, Treasury, and Federal Reserve that was asleep at the regulatory wheel?

Those Baboons are taking our 401K retirement! You know its been awhile since I bought a 35,000 commode!

Great idea. If these bums keep their jobs in 2010 it will be proof positive that Americans have truly become retarded and deserve everything these crooks dole out.

You've got to be kidding right - this isn't a serious idea that's for sure. I don't think any of these politicians are soliciting and spending millions of dollars for a job that pays less then 200k and their raises of 5%. And tying it to GDP growth seems stupid too because a) this would mean that the only thing their performance is based on is the economy (which is not the case) and b) GDP growth and deficit reduction are not the sole indicators of whether the economy is doing well (unemployment, trade deficits, worker productivity, etc). The last idea is silly as well - "the incumbent is immediately prevented from running for office in the next election". THINK ABOUT THIS - If you have a terrible employee and fire him on the job you don't want him around your business for ANOTHER 2 years. You want the bum out NOW not later where HE HAS 0 INCENTIVE (EG GETTING ELECTED) to do the right thing.

It must be nice for the narcissists in Congress. Not only do they get to control their own pay, but also benefits. Wouldn't it be eye opening for them to have to pay for medical insurance and copays like other people, even government employees. How about retirement, they should be required to have only 401k like others. I'm sure if the lack of regulations and recession had the same effect their retirement the needed oversight and regulations would be enforced.