Paul Abrams: Congress Must Eliminate Its Own Pensions, Reduce Its Salaries -- Before Cutting a Dime From Middle Class Entitlements

Huffington Post:

“Dear Members of Congress:

You keep telling us that we are broke. [We are in the sense that the Bush tax cuts, the Bush recession and the Iraq/Afghanistan Wars have put us deep in the hole, but those are all reversible with sensible policies.]

Yet, you pay yourselves a whopping $174,000 per year, provide gyms with pools and steamrooms for members, and healthcare and nice cushy pensions.

Sorry, girls and boys, but we cannot afford it anymore. We are broke.

Before you touch a hair on the chinny-chin-chin of benefits for the middle class and poor, before you reduce payments to any healthcare providers, before you cut a dime from a social security recipient's benefits, before you mess with the citizens of this country, we ALL demand that you eliminate your pensions, past, present and future.

(snip)

Nor, I am afraid, can we afford to pay you $174,000 per year. You take a lot of time off already, probably more than teachers, and so we are really overpaying you, and you do not need to invest in continuing education to keep your credentials up-to-date. Moreover, middle-class workers actually suffered a decline in salaries over the last decade, even prior to the Bush Recession, so you need to be cut back to what you were earning in 1999.

 

We would like to pay you more, but we just cannot afford it.

 

Oh, yes, on healthcare and your gym memberships -- you can start paying for those like all other Americans do, out of your salaries. Instead of the program for federal employees, you can only get covered by whatever insurance is available in the states from which you come. That will be good for you, it would enable you to be "men and women 'of the people.'" We are doing that for your own benefit…” Read it all: Paul Abrams: Congress Must Eliminate Its Own Pensions, Reduce Its Salaries -- Before Cutting a Dime From Middle Class Entitlements