Lawmakers set for plush pensions
TWIN FALLS, Idaho – While members of Congress struggle with reforming Social Security, chances are they won’t have to rely on the federal entitlement program to pay their bills come retirement.
Federal lawmakers have set up a special pension system that gives them better benefits than rank-and-file government employees. For Idaho lawmakers, the estimated annual pension payments from the program upon retirement will range from more than $100,000 for Sen. Larry Craig to $12,300 for Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne, who served in the U.S. Senate for one term between 1993 and 1999.
“For those who think rank-and-file federal employees have a good deal, they should look at the sweet plan Congress has invented for itself,” Pete Sepp, a spokesman for the nonpartisan National Taxpayers Union, told the Twin Falls Times-News newspaper. “They’ve set themselves apart in a class that’s already set apart from the general population.”
The taxpayers group estimated Craig’s annual federal pension in 2009 would be $107,600 if he finished his current term and retired in 2009 and if the current $162,100 annual salary paid to members of Congress continued to increase by 2.5 percent each year. Craig entered Congress in 1981.
If Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, retired in 2011 when his current term ends, he would get a $44,400 annual congressional pension. He was first elected in 1992.
Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, elected to Congress in 1998, would get $19,800 annually if he retired at the end of his current term while fellow Idaho Republican C.L. “Butch” Otter, who was elected to Congress in 2000, will receive $16,500 annually when he retires at the end of next year to run for Idaho governor.
Besides Kempthorne, other former members of Congress from Idaho include Washington, D.C., lobbyist Steve Symms, who represented Idaho in the House and Senate from 1973 to 1993 and will get a $55,400 annual pension upon retirement; and Helen Chenoweth-Hage, who served in Congress from 1995 to 2001 and will receive $12,600 annually.
The pensions are funded by taxpayers.
A handful of lawmakers have refused to take the pensions on grounds that they are a boondoggle for taxpayers.
Rep. Howard Coble, R-N.C., whose 21 years in Congress would have earned him more than $2 million over his lifetime had he enrolled in the plan, calls it a “taxpayer ripoff.”
He has sponsored two unsuccessful bills to repeal or downsize the congressional pensions.
“I’m not condemning my colleagues up there,” Coble said. “What they’re doing is lawful. But I think it’s obviously a sweetheart deal.”
The Taxpayers Union based its calculations on lawmakers’ years of service, their salary, eligibility and life expectancy. Members of Congress are eligible to receive the pension if they complete at least five years of service by age 62 or have completed 20 years of service by age 50.
The taxpayers’ group says congressional pensions are two to three times more generous than pensions offered by private employers.
Former Senate Minority Leader Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., was at the top of the pension calculations done by the group, with a projected annual payment of $121,233 this year.