Your idea would have merit if it mattered. Most members of the Senate are millionaires already. Many members of the congress and senate become vastly more wealthy while they are in office. It is because people buy influence. Many ways it can be completely legal.
You are looking at a symptom of the problem and attempting to treat the symptom rather than the actual disease.
The federal congress and senate have wayyyy too much power. They perverted the commerce clause to give them influence over every aspect of our lives.
That power and influence brings in money legal or not. You have to diminish the power and influence they have over busineses and life and then the demand to pay them for the influence lessens and the corruption lessens.
Until you take the power away the money will find a pocket.
I completely agree with your assessment. The suggestion about pay has to do with setting a precedent, and an expectation that we are all citizens, that some of us are not more equal merely because we've scammed our way in with buckets of cash.
I think the idea that a corporation can give money to politicians to be a cancer on the soul of our nation- one that will surely destroy us all if it isn't stopped.
So- no campaign contributions AT ALL from corporations, on pain of the C level executives and anyone else responsible going to prison for a nice long stay.
And while we're at it, let's close the country club system. Prison should be the same for everyone. If the zillionaires knew they'd be stuck in a cell with Big Bubba, maybe that would help convince them not to commit malfeasance in the first place.
Egalitarianism is decried as a bad thing only by those who think they're more equal.