On Public Sevice

The Seattle POst Intelligencer ran an editorial on Feb 19 endorsing a raise in judicial pay to levels more competitive with the private, legal sector.

Unfortunately, The editorial misses a fundamental
accounting issue: the current value of having a life time salary!

200,000 dollars paid for a lifetime is an lot more valuable than
200,000 dollars per year. A Justice would need about 4 million
dollars in an annuity fund to provide comparable value. I doubt many
law firms offer that sort of recompense.

While I sympathize with Chief Justice Roberts, an appeal based on the
excessive pay to recent law graduates is not as convincing as a free
marketer, like the Justice, should know. When we hear that candidates
are turning the job down or when any of the justices leave for better
pay, then we may need to worry.

A better issue may be financial issues other than salary. Moving to
DC, as one example, may make huge demands on a Justice's housing
costs, especially if she or he wishes to maintain their original home
as well. There are also likely costs in the form of loss of business
opportunities due to ethical concerns. The latter issue may be
unsolvable, but we obviously can deal with the former issue by
offering a generous, non taxable allowance for housing and
transportation. We already do just this for the heads of the
Executive Branch and I have not noticed a deficit of candidates for
those jobs.

This is a general issue in paying public servants even without the life time service. Dwight Eisenhower entered the White House with the minimal finances of a General. he left as
a multi-millionaire. Similar magic enriched Bob Dole, Harry Truman, Bill Clinton, etc. Clearly high office entail financial benefits not immediately obvious on the W2.

I also suspect President Obama or President Clinton would be pleased
to see some of Mr. Bush's appointees seek better pay in the private
sector!