Fueling this invective is the fact that practically every Joe Schlub who has been footing the bill to pay the salaries of those wealthy public "servants" since the early 1980s has seen his median wealth decrease slightly. As a result of this growing disparity between the representatives (the "haves") and the represented (the "have nots"), "blue-collar" representatives are increasingly becoming an endangered species in the U.S. House of Representatives.
According to an article in the Washington Post:
- In the 25 years between 1984 and 2009, the median net worth of a member of the House more than doubled from $280k to $725k in inflation-adjusted 2009 dollars (that's a 259% increase) while the wealth of an American family declined slightly, the comparable median figure declining from $20.6k to $20.5k (that's a 1.7% decrease).
- In 1984, 20% of the members of the House of Representatives had zero or negative net worth excluding home equity. But, in 2009, that number dropped to 8.5%.
Explanations for this phenomenon abound. For example, wealthy Americans on the whole have outpaced the nation in increasing personal wealth. Because Congress has traditionally been populated by wealthy citizens, their gains in recent decades make sense. Then, too, the rising costs of campaigning closed the door to elective office for the middle class because they do not have the means to self-finance a campaign.
The Motley Monk remembers from Civics class that the Founding Fathers generally envisioned the Senate as the house of Congress that would be populated by citizens of financial means. They envisioned the House of Representatives as the house of Congress that would be "the people's house." It was a grand scheme---a quite ingenious scheme at that---to balance the people's interests in the legislative branch. The former would be more "sober" and "deliberative" about the people's needs while the latter would be more "racous" and "responsive" to the people's pulse.
The dangerous trend suggested by these data is that the people's House is becoming that of the "landed gentry."
But, before allowing the stormy petrils to seize the moment, The Motley Monk has one question that has yet to be raised in the media accounts of the data that he has read: Are the members of the House of Representatives becoming richer after being inaugurated?
If they are being enriched through "public" service, The Motley Monk sides with the Joe Schulbs on this one. They should be screaming from their soapboxes.
Let the discussion begin...
To read the Washington Post article, click on the following link:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/growing-wealth-widens-distance-between-lawmakers-and-constituents/2011/12/05/gIQAR7D6IP_story.html
The Dems and GOP are all pigs at the same table, gorging themselves on opposite sides of that table. The biggest pigs, however, are the ones who leave their side, swing around to the end of the table and call themselves Independents because they can eat what's in front of them and grab from either side, at the same time.
ReplyDeleteWhy would any citizen raise millions of dollars to win an election that, often, pays less than the job they are leaving?
Public service, no doubt.