Stop Congressional “Bonuses”
We’re all irate over the AIG bonuses. What we know for sure is that the blame goes all the way around. Company executives, regulators, legislators, the White House, the Cabinet – and every one of us who voted for this Congress of buffoons, fraidy cats and liars who are taking up air and space on Capitol Hill.
Do you want to finally and forever bring positive change to our country? Forget AIG bonuses. They are history, a drop in the federal bucket. We need to launch a bigger mission, one that will certainly reap benefits for our children and grandchildren. Let’s stop Congressional bonuses.
What’s a Congressional bonus? In a word, RE-ELECTION. You can change the course of history in the privacy of your voting booth. Do not re-elect your Congressional incumbents.
Forget pitchfork populism. Let’s finally and forever reset the course of our legislative branch! Over the next series of Congressional elections, let’s commit to identifying new candidates of integrity, experience and wisdom, and vote for a full and clean sweep of Congress. It doesn’t matter whether you like, or agree, or are related to, or are sleeping with your representatives. We can change America for the better by turning every incumbent out of office.
We must do this if we have any hope of ridding our country of the evils of seniority and America’s federal legacy of systemic privilege and abuse. Current representatives do not have the will, the ethics, or even the power to change themselves. It’s time to go beyond the periodic town hall meeting with your representatives (which, by the way, you pay for) and send your town’s best and brightest to Washington!
The economic security and quality of life you are losing is not mirrored by what goes on among our elected officials. Thanks to the National Taxpayers Union*, here are a few reasons why your representatives can’t – and don’t – represent you. They may as well be sipping cognac in the drawing room grousing, “Let them eat cake.”
- Comfortable salaries that have kept pace with the cost of living.
- Pension benefits that are two to three times more generous than those offered in the private sector for similarly-salaried executives. Taxpayers directly cover at least 80 percent of this costly plan. Congressional pensions are also inflation-protected, a feature that fewer than 1 in 10 private plans offer.
- Health and life insurance, with taxpayers, including those who can’t afford insurance of their own, paying 1/3 to ¾ of the premiums.
- The franking privilege, which gives lawmakers millions in tax dollars to create a favorable public image. Congressional incumbents have spent as much on franking alone as challengers have spent on their entire campaigns.
- An office staff that performs "constituent services" and doles out pork-barrel spending, providing more opportunities for "favors" that can be returned only at election time.
- Limousines for senior members, prized parking spaces on Capitol Hill, and at Washington's two major airports.
- Travel to far-flung destinations as well as to home states and districts. Despite efforts to curb, junkets remain alive and well.
- A wide range of smaller perks from cut-rate health clubs to fine furnishings.
- Exemptions and immunities from tax, pension, and other laws that burden private citizens -- all crafted by lawmakers themselves. *
Congress’s blindness to your needs is no innocent oversight. They simply do not play by the same rules as you do. They don’t have to worry about salaries, pensions, health benefits, expenses, travel, or even the cost of a stamp. How different would your working life be with these perks guaranteed?
We need to send these self-servants home in exchange for a fresh batch of hard-working, smart citizens and patriots who have actually had to live with the mess of laws and regulations their privileged predecessors used and abused to befoul our federal government.
Who needs term limits? As voting citizens, each of us controls term limits. Do your part to save our country. End the Congressional bonus. Do not return any incumbent to office.
*Source: Congressional Perks: How the Trappings of Office Trap Taxpayers by Peter J. Sepp.
