Paying Teachers & Politicians $1M

If the United States paid every teacher and every politician $1 million per year while also requiring politicians to hold a JD, MBA, and PhDs in Economics, Political Science, and Philosophy, the short‑ and long‑term consequences would be dramatic. In the short term, the fiscal impact alone would be overwhelming: with roughly 3.2 million teachers, the federal government would need more than $3 trillion annually just for teacher salaries, far exceeding the current federal budget and forcing unprecedented tax increases, borrowing, or cuts. This sudden injection of income into households would likely create significant inflationary pressure as demand for housing, healthcare, childcare, and services surged faster than supply could adjust. Meanwhile, the degree requirements for politicians would create immediate shortages, as very few individuals possess even two of these degrees, let alone all five, leading to a temporary leadership vacuum and overwhelming demand for graduate programs. Yet the short-term benefits would also be striking: teaching would instantly become the most competitive and prestigious job in the country, attracting top performers from finance, engineering, medicine, and technology, while the academic requirements for political office could raise the baseline level of policy literacy, analytical skill, and ethical reasoning among elected officials. Over the long term, however, the system would create a hyper-elite political class drawn almost exclusively from individuals with the resources and time to pursue five advanced degrees, reducing socioeconomic diversity in governance. The extraordinary salaries for teachers could also inflate the cost of becoming a teacher, as universities expanded programs and raised tuition, and the talent shift toward teaching might create shortages in other essential fields such as medicine, engineering, and scientific research. Still, the long-term benefits could be transformative: with elite talent and intense competition, the quality of teaching could rise dramatically, potentially improving literacy, innovation, civic engagement, and economic productivity over generations, while a political class deeply trained in law, economics, political systems, and philosophy might produce more technically rigorous policymaking and more stable long-term planning.