In the US military,

If a newer non married single enlisted member on first military enlistment not approved or BAH to live off base with a secret clearance, went out, bought a brand new house and, Tessa and a Dodge Challenger on lower enlisted base salary, theyd be facing serious investigations by command and even Military Police Intelligence (MPI) and CID into how they are able to aquire the means to live so far beyond the means of their Military compensation.

All government workers including members of congress, law enforcement, firefighters and public school teachers should be subject to the same level of scrutiny. With bans on stock ownership for such people and their immediate family including parents adult kids and spouses.

Top | Newest First | Oldest First

Ynotisay · M

I don't know. That's a pretty broad range of occupations. Citizens are allowed to make money. Maybe a newly enlisted military member is really good with stocks. Or they got an inheritance. Just like other professions. Congresspeople can own stock but there's limitations around it. Reality is that politicians are typically relatively smart people who would be making way more in the private sector. Most, especially at the federal level, get paid shit when compared to the importance of their jobs. They make in a year about what LeBron James makes in a quarter of playing basketball.
So if citizens doing important jobs aren't allowed to invest like everyone else? Then their salaries need to get jacked way up. Otherwise those positions aren't going to be filled by qualified people.

dancingtongue · 80-89, M

@Ynotisay What you say is true, and there are financial disclosure laws for politicians in which they have to broadly outline their income sources and SEC regulations on insider information to avoid conflicts of interest and access to secrets (the latter being the thrust of the original post, I believe). The extent to which those are compared to lifestyle and scrutinized for violations is hard to say since (1) the big black hole SCOTUS opened through anonymous PACs provides all sorts of cover for influence money and (2) as soon as some agency starts sniffing around a suspicious politician, the extremists of which ever party will immediately start screaming witch hunt, politicizing of federal agencies, ad infinitum.

Add a comment...