What do White House staffers make?

National Journal has the salary list here. Top staffers like Bolten, Rove, Hadley, Miers, Bartlett, and Snow make $165,200 per year. Those at the low end make just $30,000.

Of course, a six-figure salary allows for a comfortable (if not extravagant) existence -- even, one presumes, in Washington. But if it troubles you that someone like Rove makes the maximum, just think what he and all the others at the top could make in the private sector. They're clearly not there for the money. (Surely the power, or the proximity thereto, is enough of a draw.)

To me, this is more troubling: "Those at the bottom of the White House staff pay scale -- the folks answering phones and responding to the president’s mail, for example -- remain stuck at last year’s pay floor of $30,000... At that level, the White House aide who keeps a log of the gifts sent to the president makes about as much as the average starting pay for a public school teacher. At $15 an hour, that’s almost three times the national minimum wage of $5.15."

Gift analysts. Public school teachers. You decide who deserves to make more money.

Something isn't right.