Executives get that kind of salary because their tenure is short, they are under pressure, and they are (at least in theory) held accountable for performance by multiple stakeholders (employees, shareholders, the board, customers, etc). Members of Congress have a sky high re-election rate, have a much less stressful lifestyle, and are generally not held to such an account for their activity. We want to disincentivize choosing politics as a career, not encourage it.
People don’t go into politics for the paycheck because only the wealthy and the incumbents have the ability to sustain a months-long campaign. That’s the real reason we have people in Washington who represent Wall Street instead of Main Street.
Indeed, campaigns should be in the public interest. Nobody should be able to accept donations from anyone for a run for office. They should receive budgets from the FEC and it should be illegal to use any money for the campaign above and beyond that, even their own. That would solve a lot of problems. Run out? Tough. This eliminates an awful lot of conflicts of interest and allows candidates to run on their own merits.
One of the problems that creates is only certain types of people can afford to go into politics. Improving the pay for staffers might go a long way to reduce some of the revolving door cycles that many people find so distasteful
