AOC was in the news AGAIN this week, this time for spending $300 on a haircut. A lot of people have attacked her for spending so much money on hair styling while at the same time demanding a several thousand dollar raise on her $174,000 dollar, tax payer funded, annual salary.
I agree that $300 is a lot to pay for hair styling, which also included a $52 tip. However, I just want to point out that AOC is not unique in being a politician that spends a lot of money on their hair. Democrat presidential candidate John Edwards regularly paid $1,250 per a haircut! Included in the cost was paying $400-500 for the haircut itself and then ALSO paying for the Airfare of the stylist to meet him on the campaign trail. This is an extreme example, but there are a LOT of politicians that spend a lot of money on their personal appearance. I am not justifying this, but one reason they do it is because their image is very much attached to their electability. This means that YES, their haircut is important, it could mean the difference in an election. HOWEVER, that DOESN’T mean that it is reasonable, or responsible for them to spend $1,250 on those haircuts. That said, $250 for a women’s hair wash, cut, color and style is actually fairly reasonable in the more expensive places in New York, DC and California.
That’s not even the worst case, Hillary Clinton during the 2008 election notoriously spent $2,500 for two hairstyling sessions out of her campaign funds and classified them as “media expenses”. Clinton saw Edwards’ fiscal irresponsibility and one-upped him with campaign finance fraud.
So some politicians are regularly wasting money on haircuts. They also tend to waste a lot of money on expensive clothes and private jets. Sure AOC’s $300 haircut is a bit expensive, but I am also of the opinion that people should be free to spend and waste their money any way they like. The REAL problem is that we are paying her and everyone else in congress salaries in excess of $174,000. She is able to waste money, because we have given her the money to waste.
When our republic was founded, working in government wasn’t a job, it was a “duty”. Our lawmakers had their own jobs, their own wealth and their work in government was a sacrifice they made to serve the country. It hasn’t been that way for a long time. Now, working in Congress is a job, and a VERY LUCRATIVE career.
We have created a perverse incentive by creating a job where all you need to do to be hired is be a good liar. There really is a low barrier to entry in government. You don’t need many skills, public speaking helps but clearly isn’t required. Just look at trump. You don’t even need a brain. Just look at AOC! You could even be a walking corpse like Bernie or be as unhealthy as Hillary Clinton falling into seizures all over the place and you can still get elected. Well...maybe not Hillary. The benefit for getting into office is that you get a great deal of power, influence and money. SO what happens when you create a job that has a lower barrier to entry, and provides power and money? Oh, and also, even if you only stay in for one term, you still get a pension for the rest of your life. With that incentive you end up getting people vying for that job that care about the money and power and not people who care about service to the country.
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