The American people are over burdened with taxes, fees and cumbersome government processes. We are constantly carrying the enormous weight of our elected government official’s lofty lives. This needs to change! Really, we need to go back to how things were originally set up by our Founding Fathers. Before the birth of big business interest groups and overtly greedy Politian, the Founding Father agreed that government serves was just that, service. Thus, public servants were the exorbitant salaries and benefits to discharge their sworn duties. We The People should not be burdened by the weight of our government officials.
The current salary for a House and Senate member is $174,000.00 per year. To the credit of the member of both houses, Congressmen can choose to decline raises and some of them do. There are 530 elected officials, multiplied by $174,000.00 per year, plus $193,400 per both sets of Majority and Minority Party Leaders and $223,500 for the Speaker of the House, that equals a whopping 93,217,100.00 burden place on the backs of the Citizens of this Great Nation annually. In addition to that 93 million, We The People shoulder another burden. Every time there is a congressional pay raise federal judges and senior government officials also receive a raise. Also, generously We The People grant our hard working elected officials a COLA or cost-of-living-adjustment.
The financial strain that Congressional personnel place on the American people does not end with their salaries. What is a job with out benefits? Before 1984, neither congressmen nor any other federal civil workers paid Social Security. In lieu of Social Security another program called Civil Service Retirement. So until 1984 they did not pay nor draw benefits from Social Security. Since 1984, federal employees and congress members have had the Federal Employee’s Retirement System. This system is funded by a 1.3 percent tax on the participant’s pay the rest is funded by the American people. Only 6.2 percent of the participants pay is taxed for Social Security. At the age of 50 congress members are eligible to draw a pension if they have completed 20 years of service. After 25 years of service they are eligible with no age restriction. Once a congressman has served 5 years and reaches the age of 62 they can draw their pension. The amount of the pension is determined by number of years served and the average of the highest 3 years of salary. The Law states that no retirement annuity is to be greater that 80% of their final salary. If one of these beneficiaries passes away, their surviving family members can receive the benefits and the COLA.
These figures do not include health benefits, travel expenses, lodging expenses, their staff’s salaries and benefits. We The People are paying too much to keep our government working. Our government should be working for us.
How did this all get so out of control? We have a rich history that we allow laws to be passed during times of turmoil bring these lucrative changes. In the days of our Founding Fathers (1789 to 1855) Congressmen were paid a daily per diem of $6.00. The only exception to that was from December 1815 to March 1817 when they received an annual salary of $1,500.00. The first pay raise was temporarily in place after the war of 1812. While the Constitutional Convention was in session, Benjamin Franklin proposed that elected officials should not be paid at all. Mr. Franklin believed service was the duty of every educated man with the means to serve. In 1854, the country was put into a fear-induced frenzy over the immigration of German and Irish Catholic immigrants. Then in 1855, the pay for congressmen changed from $6.00 a day to $3000.00 a year. The people perceive a threat, action is called for and before the crisis has ended, and congress gets a raise. This process repeats and repeats, thus bring us to present day.
From $6.00 a day to a staring annual compensation of $223,500.00 plus benefits Congress has COLA the American people out of our hard earned money. We The People are being bled dry by our government by being taxed, fees assessed and processes drawn out to get us to pay even more. Our Founding Father should have listened to Benjamin Franklin. The situation is well with in out power to fix. We The People need to stop paying our government so generously and focus on the needs of the people. Our government was set up for the to service the needs of our great country. Congress needs to cut their wages and benefits by 75% to ease the burdens of the American people. That is a $69,912,825.00 tax break annually on just their pay alone. We have allowed this process to continue far too long. $70 million plus benefit reduction can boost our economy by not draining it to begin with.
FYI. I sent this to Orrin Hatch. Let's see if he writes back.
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