Tuesday, May 01, 2007

Obama: Author, Husband, Senator

Sometime I hope to find the time to write up my case that senators and many other government employees need massive pay raises. But, when I saw this article I figured I would make a quick comment.

Their 2006 income of $991,296 included Obama's salary of $157,082 and his wife's administrator's pay of $273,618 from the University of Chicago Hospitals and $51,200 in director fees from a food distributor, TreeHouse Inc.

Most of the income, $506,618, came from Obama's royalties on two books that became best-sellers, including one published last fall, "The Audacity of Hope: Reclaiming the American Dream."
If you rank Obama's professions on where he gets his income from he is an author first, a husband second and a senator third. How wrong is it that one of the nations most influential senators made significantly more money from his moonlighting gig as an author then he got from his full time job as being a senator? And while I have no doubt that Mrs. Obama is an impressive individual and the work she does is important, I don't get how an administrator at a hospital gets paid more than $100,000 more than a US senator.

Based on their influence in the government and what they would be able to make if they took jobs in the private sector, I think senators should make somewhere in the ballpark of $2 million a year. At such a salary, senator would become Mr. Obama's primary profession.

via breitbart.com

2 comments:

Audacious Epigone said...

The idea of a professional politician strays planets away from what the founding fathers intended. But a more lucrative salary might, theoretically, reduce the temptation to give into special interests, corruption, and so forth.

Fat Knowledge said...

AE,

Yeah, I think a higher salary would reduce corruption. I think it would also allow people to stay in government for longer careers rather than going in and out of the private sector to make more money. And I think it would also attract some high quality individuals who aren't willing to go into government positions due to the low salary.

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