<<According to Title 3 of the US Code, the US President "shall earn" a salary of $400,000, along with a $50,000 annual expense account, a $100,000 nontaxable travel account, and $19,000 for entertainment.>>
Where can a mediocre software developer get $450K+?!
Keep in mind this is in SF, and I don't know any senior software engineers here making less than $300k/year, more than everyone in the government except the President!
Why?
> Why does Sundar Pichai make 500x more than the President? Do we, as a society, value running Google well 500x more than running our government well?
Why must the Presidency be the most highly-paid position for the government to run well? That is a ridiculous and silly assumption.
That's up to Google, not me. Unlike you, I don't seek to dictate what organizations should pay their managers.
> The point is that the pay for participating in self-interested capitalist endeavors leads to outsize rewards compared to those dedicated to serving society.
You are making two implicit claims here, both highly suspect and probably false:
- Working for Google contributes no value to society.
- Working for the government is synonymous with 'serving society'.
Google's flaws notwithstanding, the government has a terrible track record when it comes to incentives, inefficiency, corruption (particularly graft), accountability, and so on. Equating 'working for government' with 'serving society' is baffling.
> If we value those who serve society, perhaps we should...
Therein lies the problem with your rhetoric. When you say 'we', you pretend to speak for all taxpayers, but you do not. Your claim that higher pay would yield better results is probably true for some sectors and false for others, yet you make no attempt to distinguish between these and speak as if a universal raise would lead to better outcomes rather than more graft.
Of course, the President doesn't really have bills. He or she doesn't exactly pay to rent the White House.
In the US, we've chosen the private sector to remunerate our officials after they've left public service, and our lovely government is the result.
Keep in mind that, as a public official earning top wages (~$150k/year) in DC, you can just afford to buy the median home in the area. But if you want a nice house (single-family) in a good neighborhood? Forget it! Whereas if you took your skills to the private sector, finding a place to raise your family would not be a major concern.
Singapore is an extreme example of this (perhaps too extreme) - the Prime Minister earns over $1.5M a year.
Actually the first family does have to pay for many incidentals, like every day food, and it comes in the form of a bill.
I don't see who this applies to in your last election
$450k is a lot and rare, even for the bay area
Of course our choices are going to be Hillary vs Trump if we pay the top leader in the country less than a mediocre software engineer. Of course Hillary will give secret speeches to Wall St firms - how else is she going to pay her bills? Of course the government is going to be incompetent and corrupt - we can't hire good people at the salaries we're paying unless they use their influence to obtain side gigs in the private sector (often after their service, but that means they won't do anything to annoy their future bosses).
Why does Sundar Pichai make 500x more than the President? Do we, as a society, value running Google well 500x more than running our government well?
Government salaries need to be raised significantly (2-500x) across the board, or the government will continue being the mess it is now.