The new Speaker of the House is in debt. Better hide your grandmother’s pearls.
In case you missed it, there has been buzz that although newly elected Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) and his wife earn a couple hundred thousand dollars a year, his financial disclosure report does not list a bank account (as reported here at The Daily Beast).
This presumably either suggests something untoward or that his accounts simply do not add up to the $5,000 disclosure threshold.
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As to the notion that something shady might be afoot, The New Republic noted, “...several ethics experts offered another reason: Johnson is terrible at managing the money he makes and may be in massive debt.”
Occam’s razor suggests this is the likely option, which (though better than assuming something scandalous) still leads me to respond, So what?
It’s entirely possible for someone to have a healthy income and still struggle financially (been there, done that), especially if you have a family and live in an expensive area. As The Daily Beast’s Roger Sollenberger noted, the Johnsons “do face some steep costs—among them raising four children and a second place for Johnson to crash while he’s in D.C.”
Nevertheless, instead of seeing debt as a commentary on modern America (where too many of us live beyond our means, and the American dream is increasingly elusive) or celebrating Johnson as an everyman speaker amongst plutocrats, Johnson’s presumed financial situation has led to speculation that he might be more vulnerable to bribery.
“One of the reasons we have these financial disclosures is to know whether politicians are having financial difficulties—which could make them ripe for influence buying,” Jordan Libowitz, communications director for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics (CREW), told The Daily Beast.
To be clear, the insinuation seems to be that either Johnson is covering up his wealth by not fully reporting it, or he is poor, which makes him susceptible to predators. He’s damned if he does and damned if he doesn't.
Yes, truly suspicious behavior (see Rep. George Santos) ought to raise red flags. But bad character is a bigger predictor of corruption than want or need. It’s borderline insulting to suggest otherwise.
It’s true that it doesn’t exactly inspire confidence when the politician charged with bringing down the U.S. debt is in debt himself. But there’s little correlation between personal finances and governance at the macro level.
Thomas Jefferson, for example, was deep in debt upon his death. Abraham Lincoln was broke into adulthood in the 1840s, and, at one point, his debt was “so onerous that Lincoln called it ‘my national debt.’” Winston Churchill spent much of his life on the edge of financial ruin. I could go on and on.
Barring evidence that Johnson has done something unethical, it might be more appropriate to celebrate that at least one of the 435 members of Congress isn’t a filthy rich politician.
Keep in mind, the majority of members of Congress are millionaires, making them something like 12 times richer than the average American household. In many cases, this is because rich people are more likely to run and win elections in the first place.
As you might imagine, the money tends to come, not from salaried employment, but from marriage, inheritance, and investments (see former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has profited handsomely from her husband’s suspicious-looking stock trades).
Conversely, according to The Daily Beast’s reporting, Johnson appears “to not have even a single dollar in the stock market, a savings account, or a retirement plan.”
That doesn’t mean we should just look the other way or that Johnson’s story shouldn’t spark any calls for reform.
My first recommendation is contrarian; members of Congress like Johnson ought to be paid more money. Raising the $174,000 congressional salary is the right move. As Matthew Yglesias observed a few years ago, “Congressional pay has been declining in inflation-adjusted terms since the mid-1960s, even while incomes for other professional occupations have risen.”
And, as noted previously, some members of Congress have to either sleep in their office or have alternate housing in Washington, D.C., which is one of the most expensive metro regions in the nation.
Another reform would involve more transparency regarding net worth. Lawmakers, The Washington Post noted in 2012, are “not required to reveal the value of their homes, the salaries of their spouses or money kept in non-interest-bearing bank accounts, and their congressional retirement plan.”
Why shouldn’t checking accounts containing a total less than $5,000 be reported? Why shouldn’t the public know the salary of a member of Congress’ spouse?
If this information were required to be disclosed, we wouldn’t have to speculate about Johnson’s finances—or imagine the worst.
But I don’t want to solely blame the system.
At the end of the day, I’m troubled that the elevation of a likely penurious politician warranted such immediate and negative speculation.
It’s almost as if the real scandal is that Mike Johnson isn’t rich and doesn’t bet on the stock market.
What a rube. There goes the neighborhood!
