The problem with the preamble is that it contains incorrect information. Here are some of the inaccuracies:
1. Politicians do not receive full retirement pay after serving one term. They must serve at least five years and reach age 62 before receiving any retirement pay.
2. Member of Congress pay into and receive social security as part of their retirement package.
3. Members of Congress receive retirement under the Federal Employee Retirement System, the same as every other federal civilian employee.
4. Members of Congress select their health care insurance from the same programs from which federal civilian employees select there and they pay the same premiums as the federal civilian employees. Not all of those plans are “deluxe” plans.
Too many people believe the emails they receive suggesting the members of Congress are getting benefits not available to the people who are not members of Congress and are too lazy (or too dim) to ask the first question ever American should ask: Is this true.
Note that there is no guarantee that any member of the House of Representatives will ever receive a federal pension. Receiving a federal pension requires being elected thrice and then living until age 62—or being elected ten times after reaching age 40 or being elected fifteen times. And I might add that it is the people doing the complaining and circulating the emails who elect these people. Before you say, “Well, I did not vote for the guy!” remember the words of William E. Simon (That is a name you should recognize, but I doubt you do.) who said, “Bad people are elected by good people who do not vote.”
Another inaccuracy is that members of the military only get 35% of their last year of pay after 20 years of service and 75% of their last year of pay at 30 years of service not 50% of their pay.
Before you go messing with the Constitution, I suggest you do two things:
1. Get the facts straight.
2. Read the Constitution.
A few days ago I had an email exchange with a friend of 30 years who was spouting off about this and that being un-Constitutional. When it became obvious that he did not know of which he opined, I suggested he read the Constitution. He went on about all his life responsibilities-wife, job, house, two dogs, etc.—and said the did not have time to read the Constitution. A very slow reader can read that document in under two hours. (Understanding it may take considerably longer.) It really upset me that an intelligent man would claim this or that is un-Constitutional and then admit he has not read and does not intend to read the Constitution.
The proposed Constitutional amendment is also flawed:
1. Since the use of the term and/or would allow the creation of a law that applies to only the members of the House of Representative or to the members of the Senate.
2. Since the members of Congress are USA citizens, any law they make pertaining only to the members of Congress applies to the citizens albeit not to all the citizens of the United States.
3. If you amend the Constitution with the adjective “all” before two instances of the noun “citizens”, the amendment will prevent the Congress from passing any law applying to any group of citizens such as social security which only applies to working citizens.
You are correct on all details. But the question remains, why are elected congress critters allowed to have a separate health insurance program and a separate retirement program than what they passed for the general population?
That is the heart of the matter. It does not really matter if their programs are better or worse. You are missing the point there. THEIR’S SHOULD BE SAME AS WHAT THEY DUMP ON US!!!
My employer is not going to be providing health insurance any longer,
our company is a VERY large retail company also very high end. Will
This be happening to our legislators health plans??? NOT!!!!