Posted on 01/01/2007 7:26:14 AM PST by indcons
I did a search for this article and using the keyword search feature and didn't see this article posted. Though the article is a day old, I thought it was still relevant.
FReepers who follow the Supreme Court might recall that Justice Scalia had made simlar remarks in a public speech a couple of weeks ago.
Well if they're in it for the money then they can always resign and go elsewhere.
I'd be more inclined to support Robert's point of view if I didn't feel that the average plumber would do a better job of interpreting the law and the Constitution than the average federal judge.
Federal district court judges are paid $165,200 ...The issue of pay, says Roberts, "has now reached the level of a constitutional crisis."
I guess public service just isn't what it used to be. Roberts makes it sound as though these judges are poverty stricken. I'm finding it difficult to muster any sympathy ... but I do realize that we need excellent people in these positions. Having said that, I still have to believe that public service shouldn't make you a millionaire.
$200,000 year is hardly a "constitutional crisis".
He has a point. John Grisham and Steven King do creative writing and get paid tens of millions for it. Supreme Court justices routinely turn out such gems as...
"The Cromwellian undertones of an agrarian society's slow maturation from a Platonic sense of pre-industrial and burgeoning emotions of societal discord, all predicated upon the post-menopausal rumblings of mankind's unending quest for justice in a Jesse Jacksonian sense, shed light on the emanating penumbras that make it obvious that ABORTION IS A SACRED RIGHT."
How can we deny high pay for that?
That's real inadequate.
Well said.
"Well if they're in it for the money then they can always resign and go elsewhere."
Okay, let's review our Conservative dogmas....
1. The free market rules. In this case, the free market has set the "price" for a top-notch legal mind significantly higher that what the gov't is willing to pay. Since when have Freepers allowed the Government to decide the market value of anything?
2. A low-paid judge is a bribable judge. Just look at the massive body of Senators and Representatives who are either "legally" bribed by special interests, or cross the line to the "illegal" kind (which are arguably more honest).
3. There are some things in life that you don't price-shop. For instance, do you buy the cheapest birth control? How about the cheapest hair cut? Or, do you buy the cheapest tires? Well, I don't use the cheapest atty, and I sure as hell don't want to use bargain justices either.
The 9th Circuit Court, widely derided here, is also the highest-priced place in the USA to live. Perhaps, just perhaps, we should pay better money so that we get justices that actually are competent?
3.
With the decisions they are putting out I would say they are overpaid by about $100,000 dollars now.
The Senate and House just raise their own pay each year. Its the only thing bi-partisan they do. Judges cant do that. Still $165,000 is about $110,000 more than I make and yet I live pretty well. Of course I paid for most of what I had before I retired, but most Americans live off a lot less than $165,000.
"Federal district court judges are paid $165,200 annually; appeals court judges make $175,100; associate justices of the Supreme Court earn $203,000; the chief justice gets $212,100."
Pretty lucrative public service at that.
That's what bribes are for.
There's no reason they should make over 100k, imo. But with all the extra tax revenue from the private property seizures, they could certainly afford a raise...
LOL...some of the Court's decisions in the 70s were really atrocious (despite the best efforts of then Justices Burger and Rehnquist).
Blackmum's incompetence re: Roe V. Wade and other decisions are well documented and don't bear repeating here.
And that doesn't include the bennies....
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