By Don White

In a recent Hub blog entitled “Why Don’t Democrats Stop Lying To Us,” I suggested that the lowest paid Congressman who makes $174,000 per year could retire with retirement benefits of the same amount per year, and if he lived ten years after leaving Congress that would total $1.74 million.

That’s not quite correct.

Members of Congress are not eligible for a full pension until they reach age 50, but only if they've completed 20 years of service. Members are eligible at any age after completing 25 years of service or after they reach the age of 62. This retirement program is part of the problem in America today and I’ll explain why later.

Congressmen must serve at least 5 years to receive even a reduced pension. That’s an incentive for them to stay on and build a legacy of mismanagement and fraud.

The amount of a congressperson's pension depends on the years of service and the average of the highest 3 years of his or her salary, but it can’t exceed 80 percent of final salary.

Assuming the salary remained at the same level as in 2009 and they stayed in Congress 20 years, the annual retirement benefit would be .8 X $174,000 or $139, 200 per year. In what other jobs can they duplicate that retirement plan?

For computation purposes, annual salary is the average of the three highest years’ salary.

In 1989, Congress passed an amendment allowing for automatic raises, unless lawmakers specifically voted to reject it. Which Congress did until 2000 when Republicans were in charge. So don’t give me that garbage about Demos versus the GOP. My gripe is with liberal politicians, both Democrats and Republicans, who have almost ruined this country.

Despite their self-avowed “abject poverty,” Congressmen can fly around in government luxury jets from a fleet of 24 jets our government keeps for them and other government personnel. They’re getting plenty of flack for appropriating an additional half a billion dollars to replace four of those planes during the recession. The people are rightly upset at them.

The fiscal year 2004 Transportation and Treasury Department Appropriations bill included Congress' 2.2 percent pay raise, along with a 4.1 percent raise for federal workers and military personnel.

In 2004 Tom Schatz, president of the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste, said in a press release that "Members of Congress have the only job in the country whose occupants can set their own salary without regard to performance, profit, or economic climate. Clearly, members must think that money grows on trees. With a $480 billion deficit, the escalating cost of the war in Iraq, and a stagnant economy, Congress should be curbing spending, not lining their pockets at our expense." Republican liberals who controlled Congress should have taken his advice.

"This undeserved pay raise is no surprise, as the 108th Congress has shown a voracious appetite for spending," Schatz concluded. "It goes to show how out of touch with reality politicians can be. They forget that their salaries are paid by taxpayers. Americans are being forced to tighten their belts—if they even have a job—yet members of Congress will have an extra $3,400 to do with as they please."

Since 1990, congressional pay has increased from $98,400 to $154,700 in 2003. That was a $56,300 jump, a 57 percent increase in only 13 years. An ever-increasingly liberal Congress raised their salaries another twenty thousand dollars. Where does it end?

From 1789 to 1815, members of Congress received only a per diem (daily payment) of $6.00 while in session. Members began receiving an annual salary in 1815, when they were paid $1,500 per year.

House and Senate Leaders are paid more than rank-and-file members.

Both the Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, and Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell, get $193,400. The Speaker of the House, Nancy Palosi, gets $223,500 and a jet airplane. President Obama makes $400,000 per year plus expenses.

A cost-of-living-adjustment (COLA) increase takes effect annually unless Congress votes to not accept it.

Benefits Paid to Members of Congress

You may have read that Members of Congress do not pay into Social Security, but that is incorrect.

Prior to 1984, neither Members of Congress nor any other federal civil service employee paid Social Security taxes. They were also not eligible to receive Social Security benefits.

Members of Congress and other federal employees were instead covered by a separate pension plan called the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS). The 1983 amendments to the Social Security Act required federal employees first hired after 1983 to participate in Social Security. These amendments also required all Members of Congress to participate in Social Security as of January 1, 1984, regardless of when they first entered Congress.

Because the CSRS was not designed to coordinate with Social Security, Congress directed the development of a new retirement plan for federal workers. The result was the Federal Employees' Retirement System Act of 1986.

Members of Congress receive retirement and health benefits under the same plans available to other federal employees. They become partially vested after five years of full participation. How fair is it to allow federal employees such lavish retirement and health benefits while the “proletariat” rank and file taxpayer takes the low, rationed health benefits Obama has in mind for us and unrealistically low and unfunded Social Security pension benefits that no one in Washington dare address?

Congressional retirement is funded through taxes and the participants' contributions, as is the case for all other federal employees. Members of Congress under the Federal Employee Retirement System (FERS) contribute 1.3 percent of their salary into the FERS retirement plan and pay 6.2 percent of their salary in Social Security taxes.

In my article, I contended that Congressmen, presidents, and all federal employees should be on the same low-ball retirement plan as all Americans and receive only Social Security Retirement benefits that you and I get averaging from about $900 to $1200 a month.

I wish Representative Alan Grayson had let me ask a question on his District 8 Florida teleconference, which he claimed was heard by thousands. This was what I wanted to ask: “Would you sponsor an amendment to make retirement and health benefits you get as a Congressman equal with the taxpayers’?” His face would not have gone red because he’s a charlaton, a fraud, and his silver tongue would have answered that that was not a good idea and he would not go along with it. I’ll save the question for another day when I can corner him in person and watch him squirm or try to brush me off. But Sunday, the "Sixty-Four-Thousand Question" was asked of President Obama. See my hub of that name and title also filed today.

The problem with teleconferences is you can’t properly communicate. Experts tell us that 90 percent of communication is not in the words you say, but in facial expressions, subtleties, emphasis, and eye contact. Teleconferences are communication-lite.

The Congressional Research Service lists the following:

· 413 retired Members of Congress were receiving federal pensions based fully or in part on their congressional service as of Oct. 1, 2006.

· Of this number, 290 had retired under CSRS and were receiving an average annual pension of $60,972.

· A total of 123 Members had retired with service under both CSRS and FERS or with service under FERS only. Their average annual pension was $35,952 in 2006.

This, according to Progressive U.Org, in a 2006 article entitled “How Much Do Congressmen Make. How About their Staffers.”

That obsequious little intern named Tyler, a man who lied to me about Congressman Grayson’s live town halls to keep me out, could be making only $15,000 a year, which is poverty level. No wonder he sucks up to his boss, even to the extent of echoing his lies. He probably went to school for four years and got a poly-sci degree, hoping to run for Congress someday and make the really big bucks.

I've got news for him. We're going to change the laws on him, set term limits for Congress, and make it so ordinary and honest that only true patriots, real people from the conservative sector who don't expect to get rich serving their country, will attempt to get elected to Congress. By not allowing them to serve for more than four years (two, two-year terms for Congress and 12 years for Senators, two six-year terms), we will entirely take the incentive away from people like the Pelosis, Franks, Schumers, and Harry Reids...Likewise, I could mention 40 Republicans who thrive on longevity, earmarks, under table deals and exactly what makes Washington stink on ice today, fraud, high cost of campaigns making it difficult to oust them, and their mini-kingdoms..

Today's congressmen are not too concerned with what they consider their current “meager” salary and bennies. They can live on $174,000 for a while, which with the COLA could be twice that in twenty years. But their goal is to work long enough to get a “decent” retirement, then when their kids need huge chunks of money for college, many of them will go to work as silver-tongue Washington lobbyists who in 2009 made about $300,000 per year.

They will be just right for the job

By then they would have honed their knowledge, speaking ability, emotions, histrionics, facial movements, and “silver tongue” to the point where not only they, but their constituents, can’t tell the difference between a lie and the truth.

Congressional retirement is funded through taxes and the participants' contributions, as is the case for all other federal employees. Members of Congress under FERS contribute 1.3 percent of their salary into the FERS retirement plan and pay 6.2 percent of their salary in Social Security taxes.

Full Pensions at Age 50

Members of Congress are not eligible for a full pension until they reach the age of 50, but only if they've completed 20 years of service. I’m sure this is one reason none of them would agree to term limits which must come if we are ever to return this country to the citizen lawmaker creed that the Founders envisioned as a check against the sick political process we have today.

Washington is sick and broken

Symptoms of that sickness include the outrageously high cost of running for office, the inordinately long campaign season, high Congressional spending and Washington’s disregard for taxpayer money. Something must be done to eliminate the number and influence of lobbyists who have more of Washington’s ear than we, the people, and the miasma of a sick Capitol, a disease that is so contagious that if a politician isn’t corrupt before he is elected, he surely will be after on both sides of the isle.

Finally, one must ask why all of them have visions of grandeur? Why do they constantly aggrandize themselves at our expense? Are they evil, have we been asleep?

Why presidential and Congressional offices have morphed from that of public servant to that of Master Mahem, with the symptoms more obvious to everyone outside of Washington than to those who work there? Why do we need to put up with scandalous voter election fraud, cheating, and the dynastic kingdoms senators and representatives construct around them?

Most importantly, we need “Real Change” in Washington.

We must eliminate the constant rewriting of history leading to unpatriotic and one-world feelings and the destruction of our basic values, our flag, Constitution, and the principles set forth by our Founders. Yes, we must clean house every two terms or more often if we want to save this great and magnificent capitalistic country.

Even Congress’ retirement plan works against the more honest concept of limiting service to two terms. Congressmen must currently serve at least 5 years to even receive a reduced pension, so to be successful we must eliminate retirement as a benefit, or at least most of it in most cases because they won't be around long enough to qualify for it and to enjoy government retirement. They will again become citizen statesmen, citizen lawmakers -- is it understood? This must come about to save our country.

When kids enter college, political science won't be a profession for them to choose from. The career of "Lawmaker" will no longer be an option as a career. Young people must become good at some other discipline, some other profession or job at which they can work for 12 to 40 years and earn a normal retirement. Normal jobs like doctors, lawyers, undertakers, dentists, pharmacists, plumbers, businessmen, mechanics, scientists. Some citizen lawmakers may take a four-year sabbatical from their usual work to go to Washington for a set period of time and represent the people, or at least to campaign for such a diversion which by then will become honest, noble, upstanding work -- something

Why this drastic change is needed:

If you had a servant who came into your home, started looking at your bankbook, lusting after your precious things, demanding more money, better benefits than you could afford for yourself, higher pay than you lived on or could afford – so high, in fact, that you had to go into debt to keep him, before long you would have had enough. You would feel your body filling with anger and disgust -- an antipathy most Americans feel today. You would thrust back your arms impatiently, your face glowing in disgust, your voice becoming several decibles louder and more menacing, and you would kick him out of your house onto the street.

The White House and Congress are the houses of the people. Those defiling our Washington parliamentary houses must go and we must replace them with less disgusting, less demanding servants because our lawmakers have lost perspective. Today, they feel they are the masters and we their servants, ever feeding them with tax money. IT'S GOT TO STOP NOW.

That may sound to you ridiculous. Have we really let things get that far out of hand? Yes, we have, and we must make an about-turn or face extinction as a free country. That’s exactly where we find ourselves today in our master-servant relationship with Washington, and thinking Americans are saying, “Enough is enough!

YOU WORK FOR US! Is the chant seniors and others have shouted at town hall meetings, and they are entirely justified. You and they own this country. It's about time to dress down our servants, to put them in their rightful place.

Why do seniors shout? Because they are outraged, they realize they’ve been lied to. Liberals are learning it is dangerous to awaken a sleeping giant, and if Obama and his kind have done anything, their mindless spending has attacked Americans at the very core of where they live, their pocketbooks.

Now that Americans have been rudely aroused, they are mad. No, mad as hell!!!

Since liberals lie to them, they now see their only solution and redress is to kick them all out onto the street and start over again, promising never to keep a servant for more than one or two terms.

In our case, long political tenure is the evil carrot leading to more wasteful spending, more pay and benefits for liberals, more selfish greed, unconstitutional acts of malice toward us, sinful earmarks, buying of votes, and more two-faced lying and wasteful fraud while America and its values go sailing down the toilet into oblivion.

Americans demand real change this time. It's time we said, "down with liberal tyranny! Down with rampant spending and this insane One World concept that breeds illegitimate Global Warming fears. Unfounded fears that are costing us dearly and benefiting the propagators of this fear, people like Al Gore.

"Thanks, Mr. Obama and you other despicable liberals. Thanks for waking us from our stupor, our slumber."