Politico
recently had an amusing article on Hill staffers entitled “Little Punk Staffers’ fuming at GOP.”
Apparently, Republicans are entertaining themselves by poking fun at
Congressional staffers. The article starts with New Gingrich’s
comments:
Capitol Hill
staffers have no “contact with reality” and
spend “their
entire life being arrogant to visitors from back home.”
Those are some
fierce words, but they equally apply to Congressmen. The article goes on to
detail other injustices against Hill staffers.
…House
Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) dismissed Democratic staffers writing
the financial regulatory reform bill as “little
punk staffers.”
Then, Rep. Devin
Nunes (R-Calif.) accused House Democrats of employing “staff
thugs” to
watch over lawmakers during key House votes.
And then, the
National Republican Congressional Committee produced T-shirts mocking
Democratic aides who will lose their jobs in November if their bosses lose
theirs.
In response to
these “abuses,”
others have come to the defense of the punk staffers:
A House
Republican staffer, who didn’t want to be
identified taking issue with the words of the Republican leader, told
POLITICO: “Most
staffers on the Hill are younger than you think they would be, making them an
easy target for such remarks, but in reality they are also smarter than you
think they would be. As one who had to fight for my job here, I can say that
getting a job as a ‘little punk
staffer’ is a
competitive process where only the very qualified succeed.”
Oh yes, it is a
very competitive process. Any qualified individual must compete against
dozens of the Congressmen’s relatives,
donors’
relatives, and random friends from back home. There’s
practically no job in the country which necessitates connections more than
working on the Hill. Practically every job in D.C. is based on connections
and little more.
But, Barney Frank’s
response is the one really worth talking about. He says:
“They
are underpaid [and] overworked, and people are taking cheap shots at them,”
Are they really
underpaid? I certainly don’t think so on two
grounds. First, their future expected earnings are very high. And second, not
everyone works for the money alone, most of these staffers are addicted to
power and feeling important.
Staffers begin at
less than 30K a year. This is low in most places but in D.C., it’s
nothing, especially considering a one bedroom apartment outside an urban
warzone goes for $1400 per month. However, down the road, these kids will do
pretty well. Politico points out that
nearly 2,000 Hill staffers receive six-figure salaries. But,
it’s not
the promise of becoming a chief of staff which pays off, it’s K
Street. Once a person has been on the Hill for about five years, he can
easily switch to big bucks there
When I worked
just off K Street, we had a Hill veteran on staff who had been previously
employed for a big-shot Senator. One day, he walked into my office and asked
for help calculating something. When there is already a pile of work on your
desk, these aren’t pleasant words. To my surprise, he
asked me to find the average of three numbers. This guy made it through the “competitive
process where only the very qualified succeed,” but
didn’t
understand basic junior-high math.
Eventually, he
was fired but not because he was a complete imbecile. It turned out that his
connections weren’t as good as the firm had anticipated. At
best, intelligence and talent are third and fourth considerations for any
D.C. job. Hill staffers get on top by socializing and connections. A major
part of their career revolves around frequenting bars and attending parties
thrown by various organizations. The Hill staffers who fail to make money in
the end are the ones who don’t realize that “work”
actually starts at 5 PM Friday not 9AM Monday.
The office of
President and the Federal Reserve Chairmanship use the same salary
propaganda. Every now and then an article comes out explaining the low the
salaries for their difficult positions. Then, a “contrarian”
articles comes out and calculates the price of the chefs, chauffeurs, etc.
The true contrarian article would be about their future expected value. Sure,
Obama makes about half a million now, but, he’s
going to be speaking at plenty of $100K luncheons for the rest of his life.
Greenspan has similarly earned a small fortune from this racket.
The second thing
to remember is that Hill staffers aren’t
there for the money. They have a power fetish and are not satisfied with
normal jobs. They crave the limelight. Most average good-paying jobs don’t
offer the feeling of importance. There’s not
a lot of glamour in being a middle manager, but for most normal people, that’s
fine. These jobs put food on the table and send the kids to college.
Power-hungry
deviants only have two options: either rise to the top of a corporation
through mind-breaking work or move to Washington D.C. Considering that D.C.
requires a lot less talent and hard work, they flock to the Capitol like
flies to manure. Outside Washington, few jobs for young people carry so much “importance” and
esteem early in a career. Even if one takes the corporate route, decades may
pass until you’re part of a newsworthy project. On the
other hand in D.C., it’s not uncommon
for entry-level workers to meet with Congressmen occasionally, write national
press releases, and hear privileged political information. For someone who
craves the feeling of importance, an entry-level job at a megalithic
corporation just won’t do.
For many, working
with power is an intoxicating euphoria. And in a Congressional office, the
staffers are practically bathing in it. They are more than happy to take
lower wages in order to feed their needs for power and domination. So, are
they underpaid? Absolutely not; they’re far overpaid.
They receive exactly what they came to get in D.C.
Vedran Vuk
Casey Research
