Who earns more, Bibi or Trump?
Who is the politician with the highest salary in the world?
Trump? No.
Netanyahu? No.
Merz? Not even close.
Singapore.
Starting October 15, Prime Minister Lawrence Wong will earn about $2.85 million a year. A 64% increase all at once.
Trump: $400,000.
Netanyahu: About $238,000 base salary.
7 times the US President. 12 times the Israeli Prime Minister.
Singapore is one of the least corrupt countries in the world. In 1965, it was a poor country, with no oil, no gas, and no water. Today, they pay ministers like senior executives, and hold them accountable accordingly.
By the way, they didn't approve the raise quietly for themselves. An independent committee, a public announcement, a parliamentary debate. Wong announced that for the next five years he will donate the entire raise to charity.
Their logic is simple: pay a professional like a professional, and then you are allowed to demand from them like a professional. And in addition, strict oversight, full transparency, and whoever is corrupt goes to prison.
Now turn on the TV in the evening.
Who "stole" from whom. Who "cheated" whom. Whose investigation file is thicker. Who will call whom a liar first.
No platforms. No numbers. No plan for what will happen with prices, schools, and hospitals.
A war of smear campaigns. And personally, I just find it disgusting.
And we sit in front of the screen and choose not the best. We choose the lesser of evils.
We are the people who gave the world the idea that the law binds the king just as much as the shepherd. That the scales of justice must be precise. That a role is a responsibility, not plunder.
And so, about every two years, we go to vote from what we are offered.
Maybe the problem isn't that we have bad luck with people?
Maybe the problem is that the system is built in such a way that a strong and honest professional simply doesn't enter it, because there is nothing to do there except defend oneself?
I am not suggesting we become Singapore. They have their own system, with their own problems, and the state of the opposition and the media there is far from perfect.
I am suggesting something else.
To make public service a profession that the best go into. To pay with dignity. To publish every shekel and every decision. To oversee. And to send to prison for actual corruption (though quite a few of "ours" have already served time).
A high salary doesn't make a person honest. It never has.
But a system can make honesty worthwhile, and theft too dangerous a gamble.
And a question for you, in brief:
Would you agree to pay a minister a million a year, if in return every decision of theirs and every shekel of theirs were published?
I'm genuinely curious, what do the Jews say?
Dr. Gutnick, Civil Compass
On our platform, there is a party questionnaire. Not what is written in the newspapers, but what the parties themselves submitted to the citizens, with our stamp "Direct Democracy: The Recipient Verified".