According to this Alabama legislator, if you have a "calling" to work in a certain profession such as teaching, you should be willing to do it for low pay, since, after all, it's your calling, based on your God-given talent. And paying teachers more would only result in people entering the field who don't have a calling:
“And these teachers that are called to teach, regardless of the pay scale, they would teach. It’s just in them to do. It’s the ability that God give ‘em. And there are also some teachers, it wouldn’t matter how much you would pay them, they would still perform to the same capacity.
“If you don’t keep that in balance, you’re going to attract people who are not called, who don’t need to be teaching our children. So, everything has a balance.”
This actually makes a lot of sense. I know many doctors who are only performing surgery because they get paid a lot. They care nothing about the profession and, indeed, many are very poor doctors. Conversely, some of the best doctors I know work for the US military and earn the same salary as anyone else at their rank.
Sen. Shadrack McGill (any relation to Meshack?) has really hit on a perfect solution for many of society's problems. Doctors, obviously, should be paid much less than they are. I suggest a salary of around $36,000, which is what a dedicated Alabama teacher earns. Then we'll see who REALLY wants to be a neurosurgeon!
This will, of course, free up lots of public money from Medicare and Medicaid budgets, not to mention the rates employers and employees pay for health insurance. The deficit will be cured, we'll all pay lower taxes, and everyone will be doing what they LOVE for the SHEER LOVE of it, plus a few peanuts in their paycheck.
Self-actualization will be accomplished, though some may have to do without other items on the hierarchy of needs, such as shelter and expeller-pressed olive oil.
There's just one problem: Shadrack also voted to increase legislators' pay by 62%. And as a result, the only legislators Alabama can attract to the noble calling now are...people like Sen. Shadrack McGill.
