re: #4 Gus 802

factcheck.org

My responses are in CAPS.

This latest rant against Congress has been circulating since the start of the year, urging passage of a “reform act” to correct abuses of power by Congress. But as we often find with these chain messages, the author doesn’t know very much about the subject.
WHEREAS THAT APPEARS TRUE, IT DOESN’T NEGATE THE UNDERLYING FRUSTRATION WITH CONGRESS.

He or she (the author is anonymous, of course) repeats a number of false claims that we have debunked before. The author:
Demands that members of Congress be forced to “participate in Social Security.” But members of Congress already participate, paying Social Security payroll taxes just like nearly every other worker. Once upon a time that wasn’t true, but members of Congress were brought under Social Security way back in 1984. Yet bogus claims like this continue to circulate more than a quarter-century later, despite our best efforts.
MEMBERS OF CONGRESS SHOULD NOT HAVE ANY RETIREMENT BENEFITS OTHER THAN THOSE FROM SOCIAL SECURITY.

Calls for stripping members of Congress of their current health care benefits and forcing them to participate “in the same health care system as the American people.” But which “system”? Most Americans are covered either by employer-sponsored health insurance or by various government-sponsored programs, such as Medicare for those age 65 and over or Medicaid for lower-income persons. Currently members of Congress have the same health insurance options as millions of other federal employees and retirees and their families. The Federal Employees Health Benefits Program gives them a wide choice of private insurance plans. And according to the U.S. Census Bureau, nearly 51 million persons in the U.S. had no health insurance at all in 2009 — just under 17 percent of the population. (The author may have been laboring under the false impression that Congress somehow “exempted” itself from the new health care law, a bit of nonsense that was based on a number of misrepresentations that we addressed last year.) GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES (FEDERAL, STATE, AND MUNICIPAL) ENJOY A BENEFITS (INCLUDING RETIREMENTS) BUBBLE, WHICH MUST BE ADDRESSED.

Urges that members of Congress should “purchase their own retirement plan, just as all Americans do.” But that’s also nonsense. Relatively few Americans buy retirement plans entirely out of their own pockets. In fact, just under half of all Americans worked in 2009 for an employer that sponsors a retirement plan, according to the most recent information from the Employee Benefit Research Institute. And among those who worked full time for the entire year, 54 percent actually participated in an employer-sponsored plan. About 12 percent are self-employed, EBRI says, and so may be in a position to buy a retirement plan for themselves. But 27 percent had incomes of under $10,000 that year, too little to be putting much if anything away for retirement. GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES (FEDERAL, STATE, AND MUNICIPAL) ENJOY A BENEFITS (INCLUDING RETIREMENTS) BUBBLE, WHICH MUST BE ADDRESSED.

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