Our founding fathers, back in the mid-1700s, were an interesting and entirely dedicated group of fellows. They were a mishmash of societal groups, from cobblers and handymen to lawyers, doctors, pastors and bankers. And when setting down the specifics of how this new nation was to be run, they took into consideration many things that could happen years, decades, even centuries later.
It is fascinating to note that the first thing they did was to justify their own actions, by setting up the foundation for the United States Legislature in Article I, the very first thing addressed by the Constitution. Article I contains specific instructions on how many legislators will be elected or appointed to the House of Representatives and the Senate, their minimum ages, the length of the terms they will serve, what power each house will have, and the type of things over which they have decision making power. Paramount among these of course are passing taxes and approving treaties. No president can create a tax or make a treaty agreement without the specific agreement of both houses of Congress.
It is also interesting to note that originally, only the members of the House of Representatives were to be elected by the general population. The voters elected their state legislators, and the legislature then selected the two people who would represent the state in the Senate. That did not change until 1913, with the ratification of the 17th Amendment.
Today, most people are probably disturbed by this. However, there was a good reason for it, the same reason the founding fathers set up the Electoral College. In colonial America, there was no CNN or Fox News Network. Most of the population was illiterate, or read and spoke a language other than English. All news traveled by word of mouth, or by newspapers that were little more than one-page flyers and that sometimes took weeks or even months to reach some of the further most parts of the new country.
Legislators and those directly involved in the government of the country were just more in the know as far as what was happening in the world, and what type of person was needed to make the decisions that needed making when our country was new. So, in order to preserve the republican form of government they had chosen, the people were allowed their directly elected officials, but those officials were then tasked with electing the officials who would have the most power, those being the members of the U.S. Senate and the president of the United States. The person who came in second during the vote for president was automatically the vice president under the original Constitution.
What is not in the Constitution is any provision at all for paying members of the U.S. Legislature. This was because they were not to be professional politicians. Most of our nation's early leaders, especially John Hancock and Benjamin Franklin, felt Congress should meet in session at a preordained time, deal with the issues before it, and then GO HOME, making their living in the way they had done before.
This was not simply a mistake of omission. In Article II, when setting up the presidency, they stated very clearly that the president was to be paid a salary and that while he was president he could not be paid by any company, state or any other entity. Congress set the salary of the first president, George Washington, at $20,000 originally. However, since there was no official presidential residence at the time, and Washington would be forced to rent and furnish such a residence in Philadelphia, purchase horses, carriage, and pay staff such as a secretary, they added another $5,000 to the salary, rather than make the president come to Congress to OK each such expenditure. The vice president, John Adams, was paid the whopping sum of $5,000 for his services.
Of course, the salary of the president has gone up through the years. Currently, the president receives $400,000 a year for his services, and is not allowed to receive payment through any other means. This seems reasonable to me, since he is expected to present himself in a certain way as the head of a great nation, and most presidents do have families to support who must also present themselves to the world in a certain way.
However, the idea of retirement benefits, health plans continuing until death, security details, and all the other perks that have been added to the original presidential pay package were never mentioned in the Constitution, again for good reason. It is not reasonable to encumber future legislatures and populations with the decisions, good or bad, of the decision-makers and electorates of the past.
The way Congress managed to get itself paid, medicated and benefitted is too detailed to include here. The main thing to remember is that those folks were never meant to be paid anything. If they were sent out of the country on official business, they were given travel and housing allowances, but no expense account. This is made clear by the fact that Thomas Jefferson submitted his expenses incurred as ambassador to France to the legislature for reimbursement, and that request was denied.
So from now on, when members of our U.S. Legislature start talking about holding up paychecks for the military and Social Security checks for the elderly because that body has not done its job, maybe it is time for we the people to take a closer look at returning to the original intent of our Founding Fathers and the original U.S. Constitution.
Taking away their salaries, employees, benefits and retirement packages would make a pretty good dent in our national debt over the next several years, and I would be willing to bet good money those budget issues would get cleared up a whole lot faster.
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