Journalist Jim Abrams reported for the Associated Press that former President George W. Bush will get a first-year pension payment of nearly $200,000, half of his presidential salary. Abrams goes on to conclude that, should Bush survive to his actuarial life expectancy of 83.5 years, he will have collected a total of $5,564, 800. Former VP, Richard Cheney, will initially get $132,000 on top of another Congressional pension of $132,451.
But wait a minute: Aren’t Bush and Cheney the same two bozos who tried to scuttle the Social Security program a few years ago and place the entire financial responsibility for retirement on the backs of retirees? And all that, while companies are failing and while even good ones are terminating pension plans!
I’m well aware that the Social Security program has spun out of control and is in need of reform. But I’m just as well aware that Bush and Cheney – together with all other elected officials inside the Beltway – are accepting secure, defined pensions for the rest of their lives at the expense of the rest of us.
Take a look at your 401K plan, if you are fortunate enough to have one: Then ask yourself where you’d be today if you were retiring in 2009 after your plan had lost about 40% of its value. If you are already retired, don’t bother to open that quarterly statement!
What bugs me is the sense of entitlement which Senators, Members of Congress, the President and Vice-President have about their perks. What right do people like multi-millionaires Nancy Pelosi, Bill Clinton, George Bush, Dick Cheney and plenty of other wealthy officials on Capitol Hill have to a federal pension?
President Barack Obama said that we will all have to make sacrifices. Don’t expect any of that from your elected officials inside the Beltway. They will publicly bemoan your financial plight and pontificate in your name at committee hearings, as they continue to feast at your expense in their private dining facilities.
If this were China, it would be the Year of the Pig.
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