I am always reading about how our legislators proceed in questions of taxes. I also read that these very same legislators set their earnings as our representatives. I read as well that on many occasions heated debates take place of what should be the minimum wage payable to a worker. And indeed the three issues, in my opinion, clash with the quality of our representatives as such.
The issue of taxes is something that reaches the limits of ridicule, if it were not for the exaggerated rate workers have to pay to the Treasury as compared with the obligation “imposed” to Chief Executives or companies and corporations. Indeed in proportion workers due to “their faculty of appointing their representatives” bear the brunt of the tax chain. And this does not appear to show signs of changing.
But when it comes to setting salaries for our representatives at parliaments, then the media do not echo any “heated debates”, it seems on this issue politicians of any trend do agree without any further ado. And I believe this is the only issue where politicians are effectively in agreement. And of course we pay those salaries they have agreed upon.
The most shameful of the three issues, the minimum salary, is something that does not bear any criticism in that it takes sometimes months and months of occasional debate, sometimes being left for the next elected legislature to decide.
Democratically speaking I would say that legislators should be consistent with their electors’ needs and their obligations ought to be explicitly manifested in their approval of either of the three issues mentioned above, to which end they should act as follows:
1. Taxes to be paid by electors in general should take into account that they are the weakest layer of our society. Companies and corporations to meet the highest rates in the tax scale. Executives with high salaries to be in between the two layers.
2. The salaries the legislators approve for themselves should never be higher than those collected by the average of workers. That is if legislators want to give themselves a new rise that new rise exactly should also be paid to their electors.
3. The minimum salary should be consistent with the actual cost of living and the members of each family.
This is one of the ways legislators have to convince their electors that they are effectively on their side of the fence.
Otherwise we will always think we are poorly represented.
Posted in Politics
