With benefits members of Congress are paid $285,000 per year. This is paid to them regardless if they cut the national debt or even pass a budget. In a pleasantly surprising move, in today’s Washington Post, Joe Davidson reported that some members of Congress agree that their employment benefits are too generous. Davidson reported, “It is not unusual for House Republicans to call for limits on federal retirement benefits, but this time the benefits they are targeting are their own. During a Wednesday hearing by the House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee on the federal workforce, Chairman Dennis A. Ross (R-Fla.) said his legislation would help ‘ensure that members of Congress are treated no better than their fellow citizens in the federal workforce.’ Currently, the method used to calculate retirement benefits has a higher multiplier for members of Congress, in most cases, than the multiplier in the formula for regular federal employees. Ross’s legislation would equalize the formula at a point that would result in lower retirement payments for elected and all other federal workers.”
Davidson reported that a number of other bills would also trim Congress’ benefit programs including:
— Rep. Richard Nugent’s (Fla.) “Congress is Not a Career Act” would allow members to decline benefits offered through the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) and the Thrift Savings Plan.
— Rep. Robert Dold (Ill.) wants to deny congressional pension benefits to former members “if they are convicted of a covered offense that occurred while subsequently serving in any publicly-elected office,” including at the state and local levels.
— Rep. Robert Schilling (Ill.) said his bill ties a member’s eligibility to receive pension benefits to the Social Security retirement age. He said they now can get those benefits at age 50 with 25 years of service.
— Rep. Howard Coble (N.C.) said members should be required to have 12 years of service, instead of the current five years, before they could be vested under FERS.
— Rep. Mike Coffman (Colo.) told the panel that his bill “would terminate the defined benefit pension plan available to members of Congress.”
— Rep. Tim Griffin (Ark.) said his “End Pensions in Congress Act” would “end the pension plan for members of the House and Senate who have served for five or more years and do not opt in to continue their pension benefits within 90 days of the bill’s enactment.”
This taxpayer thinks that these are commonsense reforms that should be debated immediately. With a $15 trillion national debt and a single digit approval rating, Congress trimming their own benefits could build some good will with the taxpayers and be a start to fixing a broken system.
