http://www.thefreemanonline.org/anything-peaceful/congress-has-caused-severe-damage-to-economy-now-gets-a-pay-raise/ Ideas on Liberty Wed, 15 Feb 2012 04:40:14 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3 http://www.thefreemanonline.org/anything-peaceful/congress-has-caused-severe-damage-to-economy-now-gets-a-pay-raise/comment-page-1/#comment-21614 Carl Clegg Fri, 19 Dec 2008 19:46:14 +0000 http://www.feeblog.org/?p=387#comment-21614 How about their pensions? It's possible for a Congressional pension to exceed a member's final salary after a few years of COLA increases. They also wrote into the tax code another $3000 deduction for a second residence which no one can claim unless they are a member of Congress. The IRS spends over $100,000 a year to maintain two special customer service centers to assist lawmakers in filing their own tax returns. Despite this expense, the majority don't file their own taxes...presumably because it's too complicated. If that's not enough, the taxpayer is also paying between $1.2 and $4 million annually to run the staff office of each Congressman and Senator. This includes postage, full-time staff members, and office expenses but excludes the lawmaker's salaray and the huge committee budgets. For more interesting and disturbing information on this topic, visit www.ntu.org. How about their pensions? It’s possible for a Congressional pension to exceed a member’s final salary after a few years of COLA increases. They also wrote into the tax code another $3000 deduction for a second residence which no one can claim unless they are a member of Congress. The IRS spends over $100,000 a year to maintain two special customer service centers to assist lawmakers in filing their own tax returns. Despite this expense, the majority don’t file their own taxes…presumably because it’s too complicated. If that’s not enough, the taxpayer is also paying between $1.2 and $4 million annually to run the staff office of each Congressman and Senator. This includes postage, full-time staff members, and office expenses but excludes the lawmaker’s salaray and the huge committee budgets. For more interesting and disturbing information on this topic, visit http://www.ntu.org.

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