Just spitballing here, but what if...

[Proud Public Servant]

There were a cap on net worth in order to qualify for public office?

Not sure what that cap would be. Using myself as an example, though, my net worth is about 5x my annual salary. So maybe that's how you do it: No serving in Congress unless your net worth is less than 5x your anticipated Congressional salary (i.e., under $1 million); no running for president unless your net worth is $2 million or less.

Or maybe not net worth -- maybe value of assets (you can have millions in assets and still have a small, even negative, net worth if you've got a lot of debt). Yeah, I like that better -- no office unless your assets come to no more that 5x the salary of the office.

[Skinner]

1. I think that would probably be unconstitutional.

Imagine if there were a minimum net worth to run for office. We would all be outraged. Your proposal is basically the same thing, except it's arbitrarily excluding a different set of people.

[Proud Public Servant]

2. We'd be outraged

by a minimum net worth. But I actually have a hard time seeing what in the constitution it would violate, unless you argue as a strict constructionist that the requirements for office as laid out in the Constitution are the only allowable requirements -- and, of course, enacting it by amending the Constitution solves that problem anyway.

[Make7]

3. Look at all the harm caused by FDR's policies. ( n.t )

[Proud Public Servant]

4. Yeah, fair enough

I just found this list of US Presidents with net worth adjusted to current dollars, and the $2 million-and-under crowd are really a bunch of losers (Lincoln and Truman being teh exceptions; Wilson pointedly not being an exception imho, but I know others here disagree).

[Recursion]

5. George Washington and FDR were both just about the wealthiest men of their day

Hard to say neither of them should have been President.