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Social security in Congress - Congressional pensions - Column
National Review, Dec 5, 1994 by William F. Buckley, Jr.
CBS's 60 Minutes picked the perfect moment to run its expose on congressional pensions--one week before Election Day. Everybody sort of sensed that they were generous, but it was difficult to imagine just how generous they are. Albert Gore, the father of the Vice President, retired as a senator in 1970, when he was earning $45,000 per year. He is still very much alive, and is paid more than twice that sum every year.
Moreover, payments are indexed, which means that every year they grow to compensate for what inflation did to the dollar. The pension cannot decrease in dollar purchasing power, which is more than the government does for innocents who buy U.S. bonds.
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The lively Miss Leslie Stahl questioned many senators on their views of the pension system and isolated two different types. The first, retiring Senator Dennis DeConcini, was abrupt and hostile, at first declining to answer her question, finally tuquoque-ing her: "What about your own pension, Miss Stahl?"
Fair enough, she said, and we next see her with an accountant for CBS who has crunched the numbers and advises her that if she were being paid exactly the salary Senator DeConcini is paid, and retired after 18 years, her yearly pension would be $23,000--or less than one-half the senator's. She goes back to her quarry, who says, Dammit, how much money do CEOs receive in pension? Miss Stahl takes us to a CEO in the Midwest who reminds her that a CEO is responsible for the economic affairs of a company. Back to the senator, who says, Well, we're responsible for the affairs of the entire country; back to the CEO, who smiles and says that the senatorial CEOs are hardly discharging their responsibility given that we are running $200-billion deficits. And of course this does not affect the pensions, because they are simply drawn in from tax money.
Senator Alan Simpson was more relaxed about it. He did, ever so gently, suggest that he had made sacrifices by coming to Washington to serve. He had been a successful lawyer, earning more than he did on the government payroll. He figured he had paid his dues.
On the other hand, he said, he did think that pensions should be steeply taxed on the progressive principle. There is no reason to tax the postman, with his $20,000-a-year pension. "But if a retiring senator is worth a couple of million dollars, then his net pension should reflect his relative affluence."
Not the best line to take. Progressive taxation was singled out by F. A. Hayek as the Achilles' heel of self-government. If Senator Simpson has accumulated $2 million, this should not be a reason to discriminate against him.
What the whole picture dramatizes is the raw need of so many politicians to remain in office. Some years ago Congress voted to deny its members the right to continue to practice their professions. Thus lawyers could not any longer practice law, doctors medicine, accountants accounting. The result has been the attrition of skills and a corresponding dependence on remaining in office. Senator David Boren of Oklahoma is leaving his Senate seat in order to serve as president of the University of Oklahoma, but he is the exception, with manifest skills in several disciplines. The typical congressman faces the awful prospect of unemployment, or at least relative unemployment. To guard against this it is vital for the incumbent to remain in office, and to accomplish this he has to appease the special interests who look after your campaign expenditures. And then when old age or whatever forces you out of Congress, it is vitally important to have a robust income coming in in the form of a pension.
The case for term limits is every day reinforced by such scandals as 60 Minutes highlighted. Every year since 1984, we learn, the relevant committees of Congress have pledged to rewrite the pension code to their disadvantage. That was ten years ago, and nothing has happened. Perhaps the CBS morality tale will galvanize people into action, and here the easiest path to take is to vote against the incumbent.
COPYRIGHT 1994 National Review, Inc.
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