Brett Kavanaugh Can Pay For His Own Security
Supreme Court justices already receive taxpayer-funded security and get paid far more than the average American taxpayer per year
In the wake of a would-be assassin making his way to the home of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh with the intent to kill him, Republicans have been demanding that security for justices be increased. Today the House of Representatives voted to pass a piece of legislation designed to do that. From The New York Times:
The House on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved legislation that would extend police protection to the immediate families of Supreme Court justices, clearing the bill for President Biden at a time of rising concern about threats to justices as a potentially momentous abortion ruling looms.
The vote was 396 to 27, with all of the opposition coming from Democrats, who tried unsuccessfully to extend the protections to the families of court employees. The action sent the measure to Mr. Biden for his signature.
The legislation, already approved by the Senate early last month, moved quickly through the House in recent days after an armed man was arrested last week near the Maryland home of Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh. The man told police that he had intended to kill the justice because he was angry about a leaked draft of a Supreme Court opinion that suggested the court was preparing to roll back abortion rights, and concerned that Justice Kavanaugh would vote to weaken gun laws in the wake of the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas.”
Conservatives are claiming that progressives don’t seem to care about the planned assassination of Kavanaugh because he’s a conservative justice who was appointed by Donald Trump, and they might be right. Democrats certainly did not seem to be interested in blaming this person’s leftist ideology or any left-wing television personalities for radicalizing him the way they blamed Tucker Carlson for allegedly radicalizing the Buffalo shooter, and the only representatives to vote against the legislation today were Democrats. However, the idea that Supreme Court justices require more security should be considered laughable for those who claim to favor limited government.
Per USCourts.gov, associate justices to the Supreme Court, such as Brett Kavanaugh, will make $274,200 for their work on the court in the year 2022, and it’s to be expected that they will make even more next year since they’ve gotten a raise every year since the year 2014. So justices are already making an obscenely large amount of money for very little work in a position that is all but guaranteed for life, and that money is taken from American taxpayers most of whom do not make anywhere near $274,200 per year. Not only this, but Supreme Court justices already receive taxpayer funded security, and it was that existing security that supposedly stopped the gunman from getting to Kavanaugh in the first place.
And now Republicans, the party of “limited government” and “fiscal responsibility,” want taxpayers to pay for MORE security for these people? When price inflation is the highest its been in forty years, when the price of gasoline is averaging over $5 per gallon across the country, and when the value of the dollar is plummeting?
The U.S. federal government should be decreasing its spending (I can think of nine federal salaries that should, at minimum, be cut in half) and cutting taxes for American citizens regardless, but especially at times like these. Horrible government policies over decades, but especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, have set the stage for where we are now, and our “representatives” want to put us on the hook to spend even more money on behalf of their fellow government officials.
If they feel they need additional security then how about Brett Kavanaugh and the rest of the justices pay for their own security out of the already-too-lavish salaries that we productive citizens are forced to pay them? Nobody forced them accept such a high-profile position in the first place, and they can leave at any time. They made the choice to join the Supreme Court where they knew their decisions would be of huge consequence to more than 300 million Americans, some of whom happen to be violently deranged. Choices have consequences, so they can pay or their own damn security or resign and get real jobs.