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2008 Election Issue
REPUBLICAN OR DEMOCRAT!
KEEP IT GOING!!!!
2008 Election Issue!!
GET A BILL STARTED TO PLACE ALL POLITICIANS ON SOC. SEC.
This must be an issue in "2008 ". Please! Keep it going.
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SOCIAL SECURITY:
(This is worth reading. It is short and to the point.)
Perhaps we are asking the wrong questions during election years.
Our Senators and Congresswomen do not pay into Social Security and, of course, they do not collect from it.
You see, Social Security benefits were not suitable for persons of their rare elevation in society. They felt they should have a special plan for themselves. So, many years ago they voted in their
own benefit plan.
In more recent years, no congressperson has felt the need to change it. After all, it is a great plan.
For all practical purposes their plan works like this:
When they retire, they continue to draw the same pay until they die.
Except it may increase from time to time for cost of living adjustments..
This is calculated on an average life span for each of these two Dignitaries. For example, Senator Byrd and Congressman White and their wives may expect to draw $7,800,000.00 (that's Seven Million, Eight-Hundred Thousand Dollars), with their wives drawing $275,000.00 during the last years of their lives.
Younger Dignitaries who retire at an early age, will receive much more during the rest of their lives.
Their cost for this excellent plan is $0.00. NADA....ZILCH....
This little perk they voted for themselves is free to them. You and I pick up the tab for this plan. The funds for this fine retirement plan come directly from the General Funds.
"OUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK"!
>From our own Social Security Plan, which you and I pay (or have paid) into every payday until we retire (which amount is matched by our employer) - we can expect to get an average of $1,000 per month after retirement.
Or, in other words, we would have to collect our average of $1,000 monthly benefits for 68 years and one (1) month to equal Senator Bill Bradley's benefits!
Social Security could be very good if only one small change were made. That change would
be to:
Jerk the Golden Fleece Retirement Plan from under the Senators and Congressmen. Put them into the Social Security plan with the rest of us,
then sit back.....
and watch how fast they would fix it..
If enough people receive this, maybe a seed of awareness will be planted and maybe good changes will evolve.
How many people can YOU send this to? Better yet.....
How many people WILL you send this to??
IT DOESN'T MATTER IF YOU ARE
REPUBLICAN OR DEMOCRAT!
KEEP IT GOING!!!!
2008 Election Issue!!
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yeah it is easy to steal from a plan when they are not stealing from themselves - and another thing is that Bill Gates pays the same amount of social security that I do but he makes a million times more than I do - go figure
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With the money we could have saved from increasing the countries deffences instead of going to war with afghanistan and Iraq we could have fixed social security and bought everyone a new boat :)
Since bush is in the white house I guess it will be a ranger boat lol
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Sorry. The information about the retirement system for congress is one of the urban legends you hear about. I'm a federal employee about to retire. Since 1984 all federal employees and congressmen and women have to pay in to social security. Below is information from the National Association of Active and Retired Federal Employees website. I Know we all have our reasons for banging on our representatives but this ain't one of them.
SAY IT ISN’T SO---IT ISN’T SO
SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT ON CONGRESSIONAL RETIREMENT
In recent years, the internet has provided a new medium for malcontents and maligners to spread fiction as fact to a wide swath of the public through mass distributed e-mails. These messages have become known as "urban legends". One recurring "legend", which is particularly popular in election years and has generated numerous inquiries, distorts the retirement benefits of Members of Congress. Among other things, it claims our legislators are exempted from Social Security and enjoy full pay for life. The Senators/Representatives cited as examples change from time to time, but the gist of the charges remain the same. In an attempt to set the record straight, NARFE's legislative department has responded to the most prominent and preposterous of the assertions.
1. "Our Senators and Congressmen don't pay into Social Security, and of course, they don't collect from it."
This statement is false. Public Law #98-21 required Social Security coverage for all federal employees, including Members of Congress, who entered federal service after 1983. The law also required all incumbent Representatives and Senators to be covered by Social Security regardless of when they entered Congress. Like all other workers covered by Social Security, Members of Congress have Social Security taxes withheld from their paychecks (6.2 percent of the first $87,900 of salary). Members of Congress also are subject to the same benefit eligibility and payment formulas as other Social Security beneficiaries.
2. "When they [Members of Congress] retire, they continue to draw their same pay until they die, except that it may be increased from time to time, by cost of living adjustments."
This statement is false. When Members of Congress retire, resign or are not reelected, they no longer receive a salary. However, if eligible by age and years of service, they may receive a retirement annuity like other federal employees. Annuities are calculated by a formula using their highest three years of salary, years of service and an accrual rate. As for other federal retirees, the annuities of Members of Congress are less than the salary they received while in office. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service (CRS), a Member of Congress who retired at age 50, with 20 years of service would receive 42.5 percent of salary from a Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) annuity. The annual salary of a Member of Congress in 2004 is $158,100. At the end of FY 2002, there were 411 former Members of Congress on the Civil Service Retirement rolls; 340 retired under the CSRS; 71 retired under the FERS (most of those retiring under the FERS had switched from CSRS to FERS during the 1987 open season.). The FY 2002 average annual annuity paid to those retired under the CSRS was $55,788, or $41,856 under the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS).
Since 1962, CSRS annuities for all retired federal employees - including Members of Congress - have been protected from inflation through periodic cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs), determined by the Consumer Price Index (CPI). Retired Members of Congress receive the same COLAs as other federal annuitants.
3. …they (the named Senator/Representative) paid nothing in on any kind of retirement, and neither does any other Senator or Congressman."
This statement is false. Although Members of Congress participate in the same retirement systems as all other federal civilian employees, their contribution requirements are higher than for other civil service workers, and their retirement computation formulas are more liberal than most others. That is because the average tenure of a Member of Congress is significantly shorter than other federal employees. However, Members of Congress under the CSRS are required to contribute 1.0 percent more of their salaries than general schedule employees to the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund (CSRDF), while those covered by the FERS are required to contribute 0.5 percent more. CSRS-covered Members of Congress presently contribute 8.0 percent of total salary to CSRDF, and FERS-covered Members contribute 1.3 percent. This is in addition to the 6.2 percent of the first $87,900 of salary they all pay to Social Security.
4. "This fine retirement comes right out of the General Fund: our tax money."
This statement omits crucial information about the financing of the federal retirement system. When Federal employees and their employing agencies make contributions to the CSRDF, such money is deposited in the general fund and a government security of equal value is created and credited to the CSRDF. These securities are backed by the full faith and credit of the United States Government and have the same standing as U.S. Savings Bonds. When funds are needed to pay retirement benefits, securities credited to the CSRDF are converted to cash with money from the general fund.
This assertion also attempts to make the reader forget that U.S. taxpayers are the employers of Members of Congress and other federal employees. The Bureau of Labor Statistic reports that 97 percent of all medium and large employers in the United States pay for their employee retirement pension benefits without worker contributions.
Finally, many of the same false claims and arguments being circulated about Members of Congress also have been used against federal retirement and health benefits in general. Perpetuation of these false claims undermines NARFE's efforts to preserve our earned compensation. NARFE members should also recognize that there are a number of lawmakers-past and present-who are fellow members of NARFE.
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mumble, jumble....
quote....
"The Bureau of Labor Statistic reports that 97 percent of all medium and large employers in the United States pay for their employee retirement pension benefits without worker contributions"..................50 now,.I've been working
since 15 in real jobs....worked for several large corps...Nortel, Memorex, Goodyear ....in all plans comp only matched 50% or less of my contributions... :confused: ...guess all 3 fell into other 3%...imagine that...sounds like more govt hocus pocus..Its amazing what you can do with statistics bend and shape to fit any point of view....government for the people, by the people..phooey...congress and prez more corrupt than any organization they propose to protect us from... :cool: ..getting off soap-box now..
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