Wages: US Politicians vs Everyone Else (US Citizens)

ATSers...this is serious...AND things need to change...this doesn't include their HEALTH CARE COVERAGE!!


Wages Wages: Politicians vs Everyone Else

Salary of retired US Presidents ............. $450,000 FOR LIFE
Salary of House/Senate members .......... $174,000 FOR LIFE
Salary of Speaker of the House .............$223,500 FOR LIFE
Salary of Majority/Minority Leaders ..... $193,400 FOR LIFE

Average salary of a soldier DEPLOYED IN AFGHANISTAN - $38,000

Average income for seniors on SOCIAL SECURITY - $12,000

I think we found where the cuts should be made! If you agree... Pass it on! WAKE UP!!

Care to add links/sources to back up this data? Anyone can post numbers (Example: I make $350,000/day after I retire -- not really but I sure wish haha)

The sky is blue.

Link our it didn't happen.

The sun is bright.

Source or it isn't true.


Those numbers are accurate. Those disgusting fat pigs, living like kings, and I pay for it.

www.thecapitol.net...

Here's hoping their retirements are short lived. Pun fully intended.

Originally posted by sicksonezer0
The sky is blue.

Link our it didn't happen.

The sun is bright.

Source or it isn't true.


Those numbers are accurate. Those disgusting fat pigs, living like kings, and I pay for it.

www.thecapitol.net...

edit on 16-12-2011 by sicksonezer0 because: (no reason given)

I didn't doubt the numbers accuracy, but it would be nice to have evidence to backup claims. Just as easy as it is to say the sky is blue, one can say it is actually orange. The lack of supporting evidence for important claims is what led us in to Iraq on a wild goose chase for WMDs that were never found. Common sense is a great thing, but so is supporting evidence.

(Edit to add)
Thank you for providing a link.

reply to post by sicksonezer0


Thanks for the link...some people just don't trust someone's word...or their just too damn lazy to look it up themselves.

"Duh, link or it didn't happen, duh."

reply to post by FreedomKnight


And people wonder why I would like to become a politician.

But one of my first goals would be to cut that retirement. Make it just like everybody else in goverment service. You have to serve the people at a minimum of 20 years and you don't get it until 60 years of age.

Obviously, I'd never get elected.

ETA: Servicemembers get their retirement after twenty and I would not touch that. They're usually pretty beat up after two decades of soldiering.

reply to post by FreedomKnight


Yeah, and all those that state the Govt isn't corrupt is a blind follower of the Govt.

Want to become a Millionaire? Become a Senator or Congressman.

It's all about the money for most of these sell outs.

The founding fathers never intended government to be a career path.It was about serving your country with honor.

Oh,and another reason I like Ron Paul is that if elected POTUS he will only accept $38000 a year.Got to love that!

What? I didn't know they got that salary every year for the rest of their lives. Honestly it's peanuts compared to CEO salaries, but still.

Politicians should get paid the same as the average American.

reply to post by FreedomKnight


At the time (2008) I posted this most people said, so what, big deal.

Good luck to the opening poster, hope more people are starting to WTF up.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

As stated in my previous post above - who in sam hell works for who?

The average man/woman can only dream of the medical and retirement package our Congressmen and Senators have voted in for themselves.

And the lot of you don't care, well so be it.....................you all get exactly what you deserve.

The American Government is at the forefront of being one of the most corrupted governments on the face of the planet...............ask the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, ask Bradley Manning, ask the people who lost loved ones on 9/11/11...........yeah right it was eight Iraqis with box cutters

I give up trying to educate the lot of you............most of you do not read, if you do read you read HP, Twilight and comic books.

Most of you are asleep in the Matrix and want to remain that way.

It's time every single citizen - the 99% march onto Washington all 312,683,829 of us showed up on the White House Lawn........maybe just maybe we could take back our country.

But most Americans are lazy, apathetic, compliant and stupid.

They refuse to research, to put down their remotes, cell phones, ipods, video games, comic books and get involved, rebel against the tyrannical enslavement that has enveloped our country and now is spreading world wide.

And these BUMS do NOTHING to deserve anything but to be unemployed and or publicly hanged for their disservice to this country.

And we are paying them like celebrities and rock stars while allowing them to CUT the LITTLE that the HARD-WORKING American citizens have when its crunch-time.

They, and their tax-payer-draining-wages have GOT TO GO!!!!!!

reply to post by TrueSuperman


usgovinfo.about.com...

Senate Leadership
Majority Party Leader - $193,400
Minority Party Leader - $193,400

House Leadership
Speaker of the House - $223,500
Majority Leader - $193,400
Minority Leader - $193,400

A cost-of-living-adjustment (COLA) increase takes effect annually unless Congress votes to not accept it.

Benefits Paid to Members of Congress

You may have read that Members of Congress do not pay into Social Security. Well, that's a myth.

Prior to 1984, neither Members of Congress nor any other federal civil service employee paid Social Security taxes. Of course, they were also not eligible to receive Social Security benefits. Members of Congress and other federal employees were instead covered by a separate pension plan called the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS). The 1983 amendments to the Social Security Act required federal employees first hired after 1983 to participate in Social Security. These amendments also required all Members of Congress to participate in Social Security as of January 1, 1984, regardless of when they first entered Congress. Because the CSRS was not designed to coordinate with Social Security, Congress directed the development of a new retirement plan for federal workers. The result was the Federal Employees' Retirement System Act of 1986.

Members of Congress receive retirement and health benefits under the same plans available to other federal employees. They become vested after five years of full participation.

Members elected since 1984 are covered by the Federal Employees' Retirement System (FERS). Those elected prior to 1984 were covered by the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS). In 1984 all members were given the option of remaining with CSRS or switching to FERS.

As it is for all other federal employees, congressional retirement is funded through taxes and the participants' contributions. Members of Congress under FERS contribute 1.3 percent of their salary into the FERS retirement plan and pay 6.2 percent of their salary in Social Security taxes.

Members of Congress are not eligible for a pension until they reach the age of 50, but only if they've completed 20 years of service. Members are eligible at any age after completing 25 years of service or after they reach the age of 62. Please also note that Members of Congress have to serve at least 5 years to even receive a pension.

The amount of a congressperson's pension depends on the years of service and the average of the highest 3 years of his or her salary. By law, the starting amount of a Member's retirement annuity may not exceed 80% of his or her final salary.

According to the Congressional Research Service, 413 retired Members of Congress were receiving federal pensions based fully or in part on their congressional service as of Oct. 1, 2006. Of this number, 290 had retired under CSRS and were receiving an average annual pension of $60,972. A total of 123 Members had retired with service under both CSRS and FERS or with service under FERS only. Their average annual pension was $35,952 in 2006.

reply to post by FreedomKnight

their just too damn lazy to look it up themselves.

Star for your truth.............most people just simply don't read anything but the newspaper and watch TV.

They do not do the research and that is exactly why we are in the mess we all are in now.

That and being apathetic towards others (not seeing that we're all going to get screwed, our turn just hasn't come round yet).

Originally posted by ofhumandescent
yeah right it was eight Iraqis with box cutters

Just to clarify, the official report says most of them were Suadi and there were a few from Afghanistan. Iraq had nothing to do with it even in the official story.

People think Iraq had something to do Bush's not-subliminal-messaging, saying "Iraq" and "9/11" in the same or adjacent sentence(s) during his speeches. That's all he had to do... and people bought it up like it was CoD on black friday at walmart....

Clearly, our congressmen know something that we don't. They're net worth has risen 25% in the past two years while the avg. US citizen has seen a reduction in net worth.

Members of Congress had a collective net worth of more than $2 billion in 2010, a nearly 25 percent increase over the 2008 total, according to a Roll Call analysis of Members' financial disclosure forms.

Nearly 90 percent of that increase is concentrated in the 50 richest Members of Congress.

Two years ago, Roll Call found that the minimum net worth of House Members was slightly more than $1 billion; Senators had a combined minimum worth of $651 million for a Congressional total of $1.65 billion. Roll Call calculates minimum net worth by adding the minimum values of all reported assets and subtracting the minimum values of all reported liabilities.

www.rollcall.com...

Originally posted by jibeho
Clearly, our congressmen know something that we don't. They're net worth has risen 25% in the past two years while the avg. US citizen has seen a reduction in net worth.

Members of Congress had a collective net worth of more than $2 billion in 2010, a nearly 25 percent increase over the 2008 total, according to a Roll Call analysis of Members' financial disclosure forms.

Nearly 90 percent of that increase is concentrated in the 50 richest Members of Congress.

Two years ago, Roll Call found that the minimum net worth of House Members was slightly more than $1 billion; Senators had a combined minimum worth of $651 million for a Congressional total of $1.65 billion. Roll Call calculates minimum net worth by adding the minimum values of all reported assets and subtracting the minimum values of all reported liabilities.

www.rollcall.com...

Yes, it is called insider trading. And, sadly, it is legal for them, go figure huh?

So funny how the politicians try to hide their own corruption and splendor by pointing fingers at the rich private sector.

Should I be angry at a guy who made it big in business or a guy who's living high on the hog by directly stealing from me and then threatening me to behave myself or he'll send armed men to lock me up or kill me?

Originally posted by thisguyrighthere

Should I be angry at a guy who made it big in business or a guy who's living high on the hog by directly stealing from me and then threatening me to behave myself or he'll send armed men to lock me up or kill me?

Oh, differently the guy that created the business, as it is just not fair. After all, he only got there by crushing the hopes and dreams of people that worked for him, or basically stealing it from the homeless guy's pockets when he was asleep.

And don't forget that those in Govt have to be paid that, as that is the only way to stop them from going to the public sector. And we can't have that, because their genius is SO needed in Govt.