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Strategies & Market Trends : Take the Money and Run -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Alan Smithee who wrote (16394)	8/28/2002 6:25:07 PM
From: MulhollandDrive	Respond to of 17639

a little email rant i rec'd on SS... This is worth the read. It's short and to the point: Perhaps we are asking the wrong questions during election years. Our Senators and Congressmen do not pay into Social Security. Many years ago, they voted in their own benefit plan. In more recent years, no congressperson has felt the need to change it. (Surprised?) 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, former Senator Byrd and Congressman White and their wives may expect to draw $7,800,000 (that's Seven Million, Eight Hundred Thousand), with their wives drawing $275,000.00 during the last years of their lives. This is calculated on an average life span for each. Their cost for this excellent plan? $00.00. 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 Fund -- 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 employers) -- we can expect to get an average $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 month to equal Senator Bill Bradley's benefits! Social Security could be very good if only one small change were made. And 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 and then watch 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?