Elected officials should not receive a salary or a retirement for serving their constituents. They should receive a travel and lodging stipend, vote the will of the people of their district and go back home to their job! It should be a privilege and a civic duty to represent the people!
Their only job is to be our voice and vote according to majority and priority needs, for us, their constituents and neighbors!
They are not celebrities!
Our forefathers never intended for the elected to become rich while serving! In those days, the people would send a good, honest and trusted man, on a mule, horse or driving a horse-drawn wagon to vote for them! To “represent” them! He would then go back home and get back to work! That’s how it should be, still, today.
Now they receive lavish vacations from lobbyists, live in mansions, fly private jets, secretly engage in insider stock trading, cheat, they steal and break the law without repudiation or fear of punishment! They vote for whatever the lobbyists tell them to vote for not for what “the people” ask or need! They stay in office for decades and receive hefty retirement pay and health insurance and benefits that the people cannot receive!
This has to stop! Lobbying needs to be banned! Salaries halted! Retirement and insurance should be from their employment in the town or city in which they live. There should be complete transparency and accountability and no conflict of interest in their actions or their vote!