Public Servant or Master?

By Michele Lentz

If I have to listen to one more politician tell me how they have dedicated their lives to public service or pat their colleague on the back and tell me what a good public servant they have been someone is going to have to escort me to the vomitorium! Are we that gullible?

These politicians in Washington have salaries that put them in the top 5% of wage earners in America! In the private sector that would be commendable. That is not public service that is servitude! When the Congressional representative for the 8th district, James Oberstar, spends 36 years as a Congressman, what does he get? In addition to over $150,000 a year plus an office budget and staff he gets to go from a modest home in Minnesota, where he no longer lives, to a 1.1 million dollar mansion in Maryland. That’s what he got, what did the people of the Minnesota get for his 18 terms in office? We got lip service. Can anyone say term limits?

When a politician wins the presidency, as in the case of President Obama, and then immediately gets a 5 million dollar book deal, a hefty salary and life time retirement even after only one term, yes, you heard me, one term, yet has the gall to tell Americans in the private sector that there is a point where you have made enough money, we have crossed a line over into tyranny. Let’s be clear, this is not just a Democrat/Republican issue. There are plenty of politicians on both sides who are happy to be getting rich because of their “public service.”

It is servitude to a tyrannical government when the members of the federal branch are the top 5% of wage earners in America, and the people are told to make do with less, bail out poorly run companies, agree to let Washington spend not just all their money, but then their kids money and now their grandchildren’s money. Haven’t we had enough?

Here is a radical, and some will say, utopian, idea. We should only send to Washington people of high moral integrity, people who are willing to dismantle this power structure and people who, if they are already well off will refuse the salary. Unheard of? Not by our founding fathers. Yes, in the days of true patriots, our legislatures went to Washington at their own expense. They took the salary only if they needed the money. I dare say that kind of heroic virtue is all but nonexistent today. We pay the salary but they decide how much it should be? We have been an incredibly negligent people to let this happen. We must cut the profitability out of being in Washington so that it is only for the honor and duty that they would serve. Pay them a salary similar to the average income of their constituents back home, so they never forget just who they are serving.

To our founders it was enough to have the honor of serving. They saw it as a very dangerous matter that being a legislator would become both an honor and financially profitable! They warned us against ever letting that happen. They knew what we are seeing today would happen. The job attracts scoundrels and crooks who crave both power, fame and riches while the person of high integrity wants no part of it.

It is not enough to have independently wealthy who can forego the big salary either. They must have the high moral integrity to be able to restrain themselves from acquiring power for their own benefit. There is no such thing as a public servant who is not of the highest moral character because the sheer nature of being of low moral character will make them greedy, power grabbing tyrants! Heaven forbid, that there not be a few good men (and women) left who have lived upright and decent lives, made their fortunes and are now willing to give of their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor to truly serve the public in Washington. This kind of service is so desperately needed now, not the fake, self promoting and vain elitist speech we hear today. For the sake of our very freedom, and the future of our country, we better find them and demand this level of integrity. We better start demanding it of ourselves.

Washington, Jefferson, Adams, where are you today??