Is this email forward true?

[ecstatic]

2008 Election Issue!!

GET A BILL STARTED TO PLACE ALL POLITICIANS ON SOC. SEC.

...

Perhaps we are asking the wrong questions during election years.

Our Senators and Congresswomen do not pay into Social Security and, of course, they do not collect from it.

You see, Social Security benefits were not suitable for persons of their rare elevation in society. They felt they should have a special plan for themselves. So, many years ago they voted in their own benefit plan.

In more recent years, no congressperson has felt the need to change it. After all, it is a great plan.

For all practical purposes their plan works like this:

When they retire, they continue to draw the same pay until they die.

Except it may increase from time to time for cost of living adjustments..

For example, Senator Byrd and Congressman White and their wives may expect to draw $7,800,000.00 (that's Seven Million, Eight-Hundred Thousand Dollars), with their wives drawing $275,000.00 during the last years of their lives.

This is calculated on an average life span for each of those two Dignitaries.

Younger Dignitaries who retire at an early age, will receive much more during the rest of their lives.

Their cost for this excellent plan is $0.00. NADA....ZILCH....

This little perk they voted for themselves is free to them. You and I pick up the tab for this plan . The funds for this fine retirement plan come directly from the General Funds;

" OUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK"!

>From our own Social Security Plan, which you and I pay (or have paid) into,-every payday until we retire (which amount is matched by our employer)-we can expect to get an average of $1,000 per month after retirement.

Or, in other words, we would have to collect our average of $1,000 monthly benefits for 68 years and one (1) month to equal Senator! Bill Bradley's benefits!

Social Security could be very good if only one small change were made.

That change would be to:

Jerk the Golden Fleece Retirement Plan from under the Senators and Congressmen. Put them into the Social Security plan with the rest of us, then sit back and see how fast they would fix it.

If enough people receive this, maybe a seed of awareness will be planted and maybe good changes will evolve.

How many people CAN you send this to?


Better yet.....


How many people WILL you send this to ?

[LostinVA]

1. No, it's being disingenuous -- check Snopes

[ovidsen]

2. Yep. Snopes discredits this (link)

http://www.snopes.com/politics/taxes/pensions.asp

It's not that retired members of Congress have a terrible pension plan. I'd take it. But it's not the jackpot that email says it is. Excerpt:

As of 1998, the average annuity for retired members of Congress was $50,616 for those who retired under CSRS and $46,908 for those who retired under FERS. Those figures are quite good (about 2-3 times better than the pension collected by the average worker), but not quite the highway robbery these e-mails make them out to be.