{"id":7059,"date":"2006-04-05T12:26:01","date_gmt":"2006-04-05T16:26:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=7059"},"modified":"2006-04-05T12:26:01","modified_gmt":"2006-04-05T16:26:01","slug":"pension-reform-with-a-twist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/pension-reform-with-a-twist\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Pension reform,&#8217; with a twist"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2006\/04\/04\/AR2006040401781.html\">This<\/a> gave me a crazy idea.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), who is no longer running for reelection and is leaving Congress shortly, should do well in the private sector &#8212; as long as he doesn&#8217;t get convicted of anything serious. The immensely profitable &#8212; ask Bill Clinton &#8212; speaking circuit awaits, along with perhaps a book, teaching, a radio talk show and whatnot.<\/p>\n<p>In addition, he&#8217;s eligible for a pension of a bit over one-third of his $183,500 majority leader&#8217;s salary, or about $65,000 a year, complete with health benefits and cost-of-living adjustments.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>As opportunities for demagoguery go, this strikes me as a pretty good one.<\/p>\n<p>Tom DeLay, under indictment in Texas and under investigation in DC, resigns from Congress in disgrace. But next year, and for the rest of his life, he&#8217;ll still collect a taxpayer-financed salary that&#8217;s higher than that of most Americans.<\/p>\n<p>It would likely be pretty contentious, but what if Dems unveiled a proposal to limit DeLay&#8217;s pension until he&#8217;s exonerated? And if he&#8217;s convicted, he loses the pension altogether.<\/p>\n<p>Sure, everyone if innocent until proven guilty, but I&#8217;m looking at this more in the context of political theater &#8212; and I just want to see how House Republicans would vote on such a measure.<\/p>\n<p>Over the top? I&#8217;m just throwing this out there&#8230;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This gave me a crazy idea. Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), who is no longer running for reelection and is leaving Congress shortly, should do well in the private sector &#8212; as long as he doesn&#8217;t get convicted of anything serious. The immensely profitable &#8212; ask Bill Clinton &#8212; speaking circuit awaits, along with perhaps a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7059"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7059\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}