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Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Politician, get a real job
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I’ll never forget the shock years ago when a promising young high school student I was interviewing told me he wanted to be a politician when he grew up. It had never dawned on me that anybody aspired to be a politician. I assumed men and women who had been successful in their lives and who had earned the respect and trust of their neighbors were encouraged to run for public office, often in response to some identified need in the community. So public service came as a reward for being a stand-up citizen who had shown leadership ability. I was surprised, too, to read that Markel Hutchins, an Atlantan who spoke to reporters in the aftermath of the police shooting of Kathryn Johnston, was described as a “civil rights leader.” And in a subsequent interview, Hutchins affirmed that his life’s ambition was to be a “civil rights leader.” In both cases — politics and civil rights — I just assumed the moment made the leader and that nobody started out life with those ambitions.
The notion that politics can be a career aspiration, like medicine, engineering or the law, seems to have taken root. Increasingly, public officials in part-time jobs insist on pay and benefits that are the equivalent of many full-time jobs. Taxpayers provide retirement benefits, including pensions and medical coverage, to part-timers in the legislature and in many part-time city and county offices. These are people who could be expected to get those benefits from their full-time jobs.
The compensation of part-time elected officials is in the news today because the Gwinnett County Commission voted 3-1 on Tuesday to raise their pay from about $14,000 per year to $29,000. In Cobb, DeKalb and Fulton, commissioners are paid between $38,000 and $41,000.
The question of the day is how much taxpayers should pay city councilmen, county commissioners and legislators, all of whom are part-timers and all of whom, desirably, have paying jobs elsewhere. Two related questions, too: Should those part-timers have paid staff or an aide? And should those part-time offices be made full-time? Gwinnett Commissioner Mike Beaudreau, one of those who voted for the higher salaries, said the raises are needed to attract “the most qualified candidates.” That argument, frankly, never appealed to me. I never understood why the lazy, incompetent and unemployable wouldn’t be attracted by higher salaries.
My view is that no part-time politician shold be paid pensions, deferred compensation or future medical benefits. I’d give out-of-towners per diem at the federal rate and pay all of them no more than $25,000 per year. I don’t want children aspiring to be politicians. I want them to prepare for real jobs and be ready, and employed, when the call comes.
