Posted on 07/14/2020 6:39:09 PM PDT by AggregateThreat
Membership in the U.S. Congress is an exclusive club that comes with lucrative, taxpayer-funded privileges. Retirement perks include a lifetime pension and a taxpayer-matched savings plan with taxpayer-paid contributions of up to five percent of salary.
As the longest-serving member of Congress, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) would qualify for a yearly pension of $167,040 if he retired today. Former speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) was eligible to draw a $84,930 pension when he turned 50 in January after serving for twenty years and retiring at age 48.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
why is right...
i believe mccain said we had to allow them to gain their riches to prevent them from working sordidly to get rich... or something like that..
Why are they millionaires?
Congressional pensions are a prime candidate for means-testing. But as long as current and former members of Congress have a say in the matter, this won’t happen.
Why? Because we are grateful for their public service.
More seriously, because we’ve slowly watched our government, at all levels, vote themselves benefits that far exceed those of the private sector, and which constantly increase regardless of economic conditions.
I say “watched,” because there is no mechanism to counteract the trend. It would require voting in a majority of reformers who actually did what they pledged. That’s a tough sell to an aspiring politician. After shaking ten thousand hands and kissing all those snotty infants, they aren’t going to actually go in and reduce their benefits.
A systemic flaw.
It’s NOT just congress it’s millions and millions of fed gov workers and state gov workers who double dip.
Privileged class, totally immune from the Law.
American Aristocracy.
Needs to be guillotined.
Should multimillionaires opt out of a pension from taxpayer dollars that is dwarfed by their net worth?
Totally legal to take the full amount, optional to decline.
This is not how Congress was envisioned by the founders, is it?
You would go do legislation for part of the year then return to your real occupation.
Exactly what useful legislation have people like Pelosi or Schitt even passed?
What a ridiculous abuse of office.
Why? Really why???
Because once elected they no longer work for us. Plain and simple. The apathy of the American electorate, by in large, is astonishing.
Long as I got my beer, darts on Friday nite at the bar, my flat screen TV, and a slick ride why should I care. That is what basically motivates most of Americans.
In Mexico, police routinely pay their supervisors more than their salary, in order to be in on the corruption.
Because they formed a committee that then approved the pensions thereby they can’t say they voted for it themselves.
A pension is what you get after a career. Congress was never meant to be a career.
I thought it was an incentive to get them to retire in the first place....it was probably in place before 1975, but the large freshman class got impatient waiting for committee chairmanships to open up...
Public Serpents.
On a personal note, I retired from my University after 20.5 years of service as a Professor. Note, I also worked in Administration e.g., Chair of my department, Associate Dean of my College, and as well as worked in Central Administration of the University at large; which raised my salary.
The objections I receive, is that I get “Well these people paid into the system and their entitled to the money that is owed to them.”
In finality, if you are an “average Joe or Jane” it is better getting a government job and you are better well taken of in terms of benefits e.g. Health and Dental insurance, Life Insurance, etc. And, that is sad to say, because, after all, we are supposed to live in a free-market economy.
Because the members of Congress are mostly lawyers and lawyers write laws that benefit lawyers.
Course public servants include the military but hey everyone is entitled to their own opinion. The greater irony is that Ryan was trumpeting the legislation he passed that required regular fed employees to pay more for their pensions. Congressional employees already receive a much higher multiple than the regular joes. Couple that with the fact that most of your gov employees outside of the main headquarters such as Baltimore or WA DC don’t have access to anywhere near the same salaries and many of them bust their ass, love their country, and have made peace with what little they will receive since the bar in the private sector has been set at no pension at all. Which totally makes sense (sarcasm). After only 22 years of service and an 85k salary a fed might receive 1k/mo. Just enough to cover health insurance and maybe a small car payment. I don’t know what the answer is but things need to change and having the common men and women arguing with each other is not the answer either.
They gave it to themselves
There should have to be a national referendum on their compensation package.
Worst case, if they are busted for their felonies CONgresscritters can file for federal disability retirement.
jesse jackson jr. did that (with help from daddy jackson) and collects $8,000/month of YOUR tax dollars.
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