Say It Ain't So Already

Congress Should Get Their Retirement Funds When We Get Them

July 12, 2011 at 3:43 PM Leave a comment

So, if Washington is going to entertain the idea of raising the age when us peons are eligible for retirement benefits, let’s include congress in that deal.  So says Sherrod Brown (D-OH).

Senator Sherrod Brown has an idea. If we are going to talk about raising people’s eligibility age for retirement benefits, then members of Congress should not have access to their own retirement benefits any earlier than the rest of us.

Brown is introducing a proposal today in Congress that would enshrine this into law: It would amend the Federal retirement system to make the Social Security retirement age the point at which current and future members of Congress get access to their own Federal retirement benefits.

You might dismiss this proposal as merely designed to send a message, and indeed the proposal that may not even come up for a vote. But Brown is hoping that the very fact that it’s a long shot will force some members of Congress — and the President — to rethink the notion that it’s acceptable to raise the retirement age on hard working Americans.

“The people who cavalierly say we can raise the retirement age probably don’t know people who work in a diner or in construction or in manufacturing or in retail and had their knees go out in their 40s or 50s,” Brown told me in an interview. “People who are doing physical work always have back problems and joint problems.”

More…

I say bravo and I say ah yeah.  Duh.  Congress critters have a lotta gall proposing that we can’t get our retirement benefits until we’re 67 when they get theirs immediately…even if they retire at age 40.

Let’s start chipping away at the caste system around here for God’s sake.

Entry filed under: Democrats, Including Blue Dogs & "Liberals", Fascist America, Health - Physical and Psychological, Our Tax Dollars, Republicans, Including Wingers & "Moderates", Seniors/Retirement/SS, We the People. Tags: .