Posted on 09/07/2008 9:45:21 AM PDT by GreaterSwiss
John McCain says he’d impose a little fiscal discipline on his Cabinet — by asking the best-off to work for one dollar per year.
The vow, made in an interview taped with Bob Schieffer for CBS’s “Face the Nation,” fits with McCain’s new push to run as a reformer who would shake up Washington, where he has worked for the past 26 years.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Public service...
Plus, you can make it all back with the “tell all” book after you leave the job.
When you’re a “Dollar-a-year-man” the job is stress-free ‘cause you can just walk away at any time.
Sounds like Gov Saracude is bringing her AK ideas to the campaign. Sounds good to me.
If he puts his money where his mouth is and is willing to act as President for $1 a year, then it seems like a good idea, I guess. But the article doesn’t say anything about that.
no democrats will want the job now!
I heard some of this interview. I didn’t hear this part. Did McCain say anywhere that he would do the same? He is well off, doesn’t really “need” the money...just wondering...
Stupid idea. Just get rid of the cabinet departments and you don’t have to worry about paying someone $1.
Who decides what is best off? And will McCain work for free? He could live off his wife’s beer money.
McCain, paraphrasing, wanting the ‘smartest people to work on nation’s problems: “What’s partisan about energy independence”
I’d rather drill for oil than ration gas or pay $4/gal and check my tire pressure everyday
This is largely symbolic, but there’s an old saying, “Leadership starts at the top.”
Good for McCain!
Well, that takes care of his promise to have dems in his cabinet.
Start with the Education Department.
NO. Pay them what the position is worth.
Don’t DENY capitalism, embrace it.
(By the way, the frauds (er, democrats) will STILL hate you, despite this trick.)
Schmidt needs to get the Maverick reigned in again . Since he hates evil capitalist profiteers , will he now populate his administration only with people who have married rich women and do not need a salary ?
The Palin Effect. Reform at every level. America will love it!
No, the article doesn't say that, but he would look absolutely goofy without that condition, so I suspect *that* is a given. He wouldn't be accepting more than $1 a year himself. If he *does* go this route, that would *truly* shake things up, in Washington...
the infowarrior
This would be a great symbolic gesture...
During World war II Roosevelt recruited the cream of America's industrial crop to ceate the War Production Board among other entities. Their task was to maximize the war effort of industry. They were paid a dollar a year. My grandfather was a chemist and a dollar a year man. He still had his one dollar checks from the government proudly framed and hanging on his wall till his death in the late sixties. McCain knows about this precedent, obviously. Too bad so few others do.
How about paying employees on commission? The more they cut in expenses from their department, the more they make.
FINALLY! Now that's what I call CHANGE!
“To each according to his need...???”
I'd bet he'd do it. With the cash flow he's got...150k to him is like me dropping a hundred bucks.
More cheap applause lines that amount to little. His incessant talk of “pork barrel spending” involves about $30 billion per year, less than 1% of our $3 Trillion dollar budget. And sure, there’s waste in that $30 billion, but there is also funding for hundreds of projects that benefit local communities, and that would be difficult or impossible to finance any other way.
People applauding this McCain standard need to look around their communities and learn what projects have been financed by “pork barrel spending”. And you can be confident that many of those projects would find financing by some other ingenuous method in Congress.
McCain’s stump pitch contains too many gimmicks, and too many poorly defined proposals (such as offshore drilling IF the states agree), and too many rarely mentioned, controversial issues (amnesty). As more conservatives get onto this, the enthusiasm will diminish. He needs to stop mealy mouthing and state more clearly what he plans to do if elected.
I like the idea - it reinforces the idea that serving the public isn’t all about money. In fact, seems to me it would be sort of a status symbol - being asked to use one’s intellect and experience and not needing money for it.
Why, oh why, were we born in a century where it is considered admirable to give high paying jobs to people who are unqualified and perhaps incapable of doing them well (affirmative action), while at the same time grossly underpaying highly qualified and highly capable people for the nation’s most critical jobs? Survival of the fittest should’ve weeded out such societies long ago.
I can't wait until the administration's can-do spirit outsources the U.S. Mail to India .
He did it when he was part of the Chysler turnaround.
An appeal to Macomb County and all "Reagan Democrats" in Michigan with a memory?
Perhaps......
It doesn’t worry me. I think it’s good discipline. I also think Mac got the idea from Mitt, who pledged to take no Salary as Pres. It’s the same thing he did as Gov. of Mass, and as the organizer for the SLC Olympics. When you already have millions, it’s about service and fiscal discipline and setting an example.
Coincidentally, $1 per year is how much disposable income the rest of us will have under the Obama tax plan.
Been going on for years. Back in WW2, my dad, who had many restaurants across the country, was proud as hell to be appointed as a “dollar a year man.” He was asked to be a consultant on getting food and meals to the populace should the country be bombed, food lines interrupted, etc.
He wasn’t in the cabinet and he didn’t have much to do==but still, that dollar a year was the best he’d ever earned.
Where is the source for this remark, did I miss it? If there is no source this is just another rumor, one I would say is designed to do what it is doing here, pissing people off and setting him up for later when they can diss him for actually paying aides a salary.
See my post #33 on this thread and others at #17 and #20 about dollar a year men. It was a great honor to be one.
McCain’s convention signs touted “service to country” and I sort of wondered why. Not just the military, it now seems, but others will be asked to volunteer to help.
If they cannot afford to donate their time, they won’t be asked. Certain investments work that way too==you cannot get in unless you can afford to lose every cent.
Ok, I guess I should have read more before commenting, however, if he doesn’t take a $1 a year himself he is being a hypocrite. I still think people should be paid for what they do, and paid a salary commensurate with how well they do the job. It shouldn’t be tied to commissions as one poster said, because then people would be cutting necessary spending just to get a bonus.
Warren Buffett will “serve.”
And be assured, he’ll get a “return” on his investment, even if it’s not a “salary”.
There are more... Barbarians at the gate...
Bingo! Gimmicks like this don't work. 10 guys not take a quarter of a mil a year is a rounding error, not a strategy. Just get out the cleaver and start cutting the size of the government. I hope this kind of stuff is not cover for not spending less.
BTTT
I understand there were a lot of ‘1$ a year men’ during WWII.
Does anyone here have memory of whether these people walked off the job when the going got tough or did they stay on?
I don’t care how much money someone contracts to make. What I do care about is whether limited financial investment in a position will mean a constant stream of revolving cabinet members.
I like this approach because it sends the message: you are not entering a McCain administration to enrich yourself.
Wouldn’t it be great if the same happened at the United Way and other ‘charitable’ groups that pay wages far higher than the private sector.
COUNTRY FIRST
He is - one dollar per year. And that's what it's worth..
but it’s OUR money he’s paying them with
you’re talking about the same guy who filibustered the Medicare prescription drug benefit that all the other ‘conservatives’ voted for and Bush signed into law.
true but you are just looking at the amount of money saved and mcCain is about the idea of putting service ahead of selfish ambition.
Don’t worry, McCain is about saving ‘real’ money but you can’t begin to save real money if politicians are only in this for the perks. They vote for welfare programs, not to help people, but to keep themselves in power.
So that Biden can sit all day and talk like a fool and not have to worry about getting fired because he brings home the pork.
“If he puts his money where his mouth is and is willing to act as President for $1 a year, then it seems like a good idea, I guess. But the article doesn’t say anything about that.”
You are so correct!
Thank you.
“When you’re a “Dollar-a-year-man” the job is stress-free ‘cause you can just walk away at any time.”
I agree with you.
The Constitution clearly references executive departments, but never identifies them. Washington appointed secretaries of state, war (defense) and treasury and an attorney general, these four departments were fine for a long time thereafter and they would be fine today.
The Constitution requires Congress to set the salary of a president and setting the salary at $1 could create problems later. It makes more sense for McCain to donate his salary to the Treasury.
“you’re talking about the same guy who filibustered the Medicare prescription drug benefit that all the other ‘conservatives’ voted for and Bush signed into law.”
Also talking about the guy who voted against the Bush tax cuts, using class warfare rhetoric, saying they were just tax cuts for the rich.
McCain said in his acceptance speech that he was once a self-absorbed show-off, but that his POW experience cured him of that. I think many would disagree. He’s still a self-absorbed show-off, and many of his contrarian positions are as much to be different and attract attention as they are any real core beliefs. Or, even to extract revenge, as many, many believe was the case in 2001 after he’d lost to Bush.
Whatever might be said about either of the candidates, I still believe that we have the two worst presidential candidates since WWII, and maybe in US history. Two with some weird psychological make-ups.
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