Politician's Salary
Looking at the chart, on the website given above, politicians make a considerable amount of money and have many benefits. The problem with having politicians make such large sums of money is that some people run for that reason. I believe that the amount of money the politicians make should be lowered so that people would run to promote the ideals that they believe in and support the people, rather than for the benefits that would result from winning. Canada uses this moral for their politicians; the politicians don't make nearly as much as U.S. politicians, so running for a political position is driven less by the large salary. Their large salaries negatively affects citizens. The more the politicians make the more we, the people, have to pay in taxes. According to the website the president's salary increased from $200,000 to $400,000 a year from 2000 to 2001 and stayed at $400,000 the rest of the years. This is ridiculous.
http://www.thecapitol.net/FAQ/payandperqs.htm
The website shows the increase of payment and the amount a Politician earns.
Public Opinion on Congressional Income
Cost of Campaigning
William F. Buckley Jr. author of the Campaigns and Money and Reform, discusses the issue of spendings to run a campaign. He founded a political magazine a TV show and wrote some books. Born November 24, 1925, died February 27, 2008
Summary:
The main issue discussed in this article is how expensive it is to run a Presidential campaign. This eliminates many qualified candidates due to financial support. William's ideas on how to decrease the amount of money spent on a campaign is to shorten the time a candidate has to advertise their campaign. Also, limiting the amount of money that can be spent on a campaign. However for some corporations this would limit their earnings. An example is television is huge, the article states that 60% of the money spent on the campaign goes to TV.
Reflection:
William has a great point in that limiting the amount of money a candidate can spend on a campaign would balance every candidates chance of getting the position. This would give the people a balanced amount of advertisements on each candidate where people can see the positions each holds clearer. The negative affect of shortening the campaign gives the voters less time to consider their vote. Either positions the candidate holds change or to much information was revealed, which makes more room for debates. It does seem black and white, however, people will always find loop holes where money can be used in an advantage for a campaign. It seems as though money will always have its advantages, however, the more restrictions made, a finer line is drawn for limiting money spending on campaigns.
