PDA

View Full Version : Nearly 20% of Congress collecting pensions in addition to $174k salary




tsai3904
06-28-2013, 11:35 AM
About 90 members from both chambers collected a government pension atop their taxpayer-financed $174,000 salary in 2012, National Journal found in an examination of recent financial records. Including a dozen newly elected freshmen who reported government pensions last year, the number now stands above 100. That’s nearly one-fifth of Congress. One lawmaker, freshman Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, received $253,323 from her government pension last year—a sum that, combined with her congressional salary, will make her better paid than President Obama this year.

Congressional pensioners span the ideological spectrum, from tea-party conservatives who rail against government waste to unabashed liberals. They are among the richest members (Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., with a net worth of at least $42.8 million in 2011) and the poorest (Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., who reported between $15,000 and $50,000 in the bank and at least $600,000 in mortgage and loan debts). Overall, Democrats draw government pensions more often than Republicans—by a ratio of 2-to-1. Some lawmakers draw on multiple public retirement packages, including the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, John Cornyn of Texas, who collected $65,000 from three different pensions in 2012.

More:
http://www.nationaljournal.com/magazine/nearly-one-in-five-members-of-congress-gets-paid-twice-20130627

tod evans
06-28-2013, 11:37 AM
"They" don't represent "me"...

HOLLYWOOD
06-28-2013, 11:42 AM
Among Republicans, the biggest retirement package belongs to Rep. Ted Poe of Texas, who has cashed more than $300,000 in combined pay and pensions in each of the last five years. Poe is only 64. He was a Texas prosecutor and a judge, so he has received two pensions since his arrival in Congress in 2005. They were worth $139,382 in 2011. (An “accounting error” that provided him only 11 months of payments from one pension dropped the total to $126,743 last year, according to Poe spokeswoman Shaylyn Hynes.) “Under the law of the State of Texas he has earned a pension for his public service to both the county and the state,” Hynes said in an e-mail. In his first eight years in Congress, Poe earned more than $1 million in retirement pay.

Philhelm
06-28-2013, 01:07 PM
A lot of us won't ever be able to retire.

Carlybee
06-28-2013, 01:20 PM
So happy my tax dollars can contribute to their wealth building. /sarcasm

kathy88
06-28-2013, 02:09 PM
I'll never be able to retire. Work til dead.

Carlybee
06-28-2013, 03:00 PM
Me too Kathy