I don't want people in congress as a career. Do it for at most 2 terms and get back to the real world. When that is the reality it means we cannot take away their ability to have stocks because when they return "to the real world" they will need that savings. Though while in office they should be limited to buying and selling from blind trusts and such things where they cannot know what happens except the economy in general. However if they own stock before it isn't fair to make them sell it: this is a really hard problem and there probably isn't an answer I will be happy with.

Your argument seems to be that those in public service should only survive on their salaries, because "doing it for the people" is enough of a reward that they don't need to worry about such trivialities as money.

There's no good reason to stop anyone from owning stocks. It's part of any sensible person's retirement strategy. The issue is whether there's a conflict of interest there, and blind trusts or broad market ETFs are two good ways of addressing that issue.

Other alternatives include announcing their intention to trade in specific stocks several months in advance of doing so, so that even if they know about specific long-term future advantages a company might have, it's public knowledge and others can also trade in a similar way. But the easiest solutions by far are blind trusts and broad market ETFs.

It makes more sense when the government isn't as powerful as it is today. If we didn't ask or expect our governments to do so much the politicians would have much less advantage over the average person.

If we don't pay them well (and we arguably already fail to do that[1]), then it becomes really hard for anybody but the independently wealthy to be in Congress.

1 - $174,000 is the current salary. With that, they have to maintain two households (one in DC, one in home district/state). That salary is far from unusual for white collar workers in major metro areas.

I have a hot take on this that I think could actually make some headway: - We raise the congressional salary. Say, maybe double them across the board.

BUT in exchange, you, your immediate family, and any business, LLC, or other similar vehicle you are a named party to as a consultant, beneficiary, owner, or investor must divest of specific investments and can only hold the equivalent value of an index fund that tracks the general market. Or, you can remove yourself from the investment/ownership vehicle during the term you serve as a congressperson.

Problem solved? Probably not, but it's an interesting thought experiment. I'm sure there are a bunch of loopholes I haven't fully through through, too.

Their salary is not nearly enough. FAANG SWEs make several times more money for something that's quite a bit less important. Their pay is pretty good, but they also have a job which requires them to stay away from home (for most of them) for long periods of time. The pay is not really enough to maintain a household and a second living space comfortably.

I get the sentiment that they shouldn't be in it for the money. But money is important even for idealists. Let's say someone wants to serve the people, but not enough to take a $174,000/year salary with a lot of travel and needing to pay for lodging in a remote city, when they could be making $500,000/year at Facebook instead. Would you say that this person doesn't want to serve the people enough, and shouldn't run?

Maybe you would, but the problem is that you mostly won't get people who want to serve even more. By paying a relatively low salary, you'll end up getting:

1. Idealists with poor prospects in the job market.

2. Extreme idealists with good job prospects.

3. People who think they can leverage the position to make enough money to offset the difference in pay.

4. People rich enough not to care about piddling W-2 income.

In practice, categories 3 and 4 will win. According to https://www.quiverquant.com/congress-live-net-worth/, 107 members, or 20%, of Congress has a net worth of over $10 million. That net worth is in the top 2% of their age group. 16 members, or 3%, have a net worth of over $100 million.

And of course people don't tend to attain substantial net worth without having an eye for ways to make money, so it's very likely that those people will abuse their position to make money as long as they think they can get away with it.

I'd rather see a substantially increased salary, something like $1 million/year, so that ordinary people with decent skills can see serving in Congress as something they don't have to sacrifice for, financially. That would create a lot more competition for those positions and push out some of the extremely wealthy ones.

it's not really possible considering that most retirement accounts are stock portfolios — it also doesn't matter too much on an individual level because an individual ban just gets pushed to sharing stock tips with extended family (already happens), family bans get pushed to friends, etc...

I really think the best and maybe only way to avoid this wealth building nonsense are much harsher term limits — public service should be severely limited to prevent people from being in decades long positions to abuse it. Term limits also prevent the incessant campaign fundraising to some extent, because say you're limited to 2 terms... there's not much point in personal fundraising on your last one