Ben Franklin On What Feds Should Be Paid: Nothing

In an address at the Gov 2.0 Summit yesterday, Carl Malamud, who has made a name for himself by running public.resource.org, which is aimed at making government information more accessible, delivered a barnburner of a speech making the case that "the basic machinery of government does not work." In particular, he focused on misspending on federal information technology projects.

But in his address, Malamud also took note of one founding father's view of compensation for federal officials:

At the Constitutional Convention, Ben Franklin stated his belief that public servants should not be paid a salary, for in paying the civil service, our government would not be made of "the wise and the moderate ... the men fittest for the trust" but instead by "the bold and the violent, the men of strong passions ... in their selfish pursuits."

Franklin actually had even more to say on the subject in an address to his fellow drafters of the Constitution. Such as this: "Sir, tho' we may set out in the beginning with moderate salaries, we shall find that such will not be of long continuance. Reasons will never be wanting for proposed augmentations."