Posted by
Marked in Pgh on Monday, February 15, 2010 5:00:48 PM
Politics pays for Bayh, as he complains about partisanship in a Senate with a 60 seat Dem. majority! I wish I was such a good liar and the second generation to serve and benefit from having a seat in the U.S. Senate. Since he is not running for office again, he can keep the $13,000,000 contibuted by his supporters, while effectively making, and keeping, over a $1,000,000 a year after 12 years in Washington. And they say government work doesn't pay.
The trouble is, government work, whether in the form of ever increasing and protected union jobs with generous retirement benefits, or the big money in elected or appointed office, pays too well for those drawing on taxpayer provided salaries or political contributions to readily surrender them to anyone else. That is, unless they, like Sen. Bayh, can benefit from keeping the excess money left in their campaign war chests and, by doing so, turn themselves into instant millionaires upon retirement.
Bayh can make himself a winner of life's lottery, because Congress passed a law allowing members of Congress to keep money left in their election war chest as a windfall. They set the law up to compensate themselves for the potential loss of what they see as their lifetime political carreers. As a second generation political elite, the present Sen. Bayh is treating his senatorial seat as almost being bequeathed to him from his father, Sen. Birch Bayh. Elected office is not like the hereditary titles of European nobility or royalty. There are no titles of nobility given or granted by the Federal government and there is no room in a republic for either noble or royal families like the Kennedys. Neither Ted Kennedy's nor Biden's senatorial seats are theirs to bequeath to members of their family. Ted's seat was taken by a lowly commoner in a special election and Biden's son has opted out of running for his old seat as a result of the same election and additional losses in New Jersey and Virginia.
The electorate decides who serves in office and how long and how they will be compensated. Term limits can eliminate turning Congress into the equivalent of upper and lower hereditary British Houses of Lords. In addition, if Congress wants to pass any new taxes, they should start by laying a windfall tax of, say, 90% on their own war chests. That is change we can believe in.