Make Congress use social security

Years and years ago I remember a small effort to ask Congress to extend their form of health insurance to the rest of us. Senator Mark Dayton, from Minnesota, has issued the same call — although not to much effect, unfortunately.

Now I’m wondering if perhaps we ought to do the same thing for social security? A close friend of mine sent me this note today:

Perhaps we are asking the wrong questions during election years:

Our Senators and Congresswomen do not pay into Social Security and, ofcourse, they do not collect from it. You see, Social Security benefitswere not suitable for persons of their rare elevation in society.Theyfelt they should have a special plan for themselves. So, many years agothey voted in their own benefit plan.

In more recent years, no congressperson has felt the need to change it. After all, it is a greatmplan. 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 livingadjustments…

For example, former Senator Byrd and Congressman White and their wivesmay expect to draw $7,800,000.00 (that’s Seven Million, Eight-HundredThousand Dollars), with their wives drawing $275,000.00 during the lastyears of their lives.

This is calculated on an average life span for each of those twodignitaries. Younger dignitaries who retire at an early age, willreceive much more during the rest of their lives. Their cost for thisexcellent 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 plantedand maybe good changes will evolve.

I think the point this email alert is making is a good one — if Congress was dealing with their own compensation they might be more careful with it!