A letter in Today’s
newspaper is so rife with outright falsehoods that space in my return allowed addressing
only the worst, due to the 300-word limit. Rather than redo what was said in
the original I’ll just add a bit in each short response paragraph. The topics
will be obvious.
Members of Congress
have exactly the same medical insurance options as Villagers, by law. (the letter decried their “private insurance
plans” which is ludicrous, since we are backward and still believe health
insurance should be profitable, instead of a citizen’s right.) Like every insurance program in America except
Medicare and Medicaid, those options are either individual or group plans. Many
use the government employees plan, others use vehicles like Cigna, but none is
free.
Likewise, there is no secret “Congressional” ward at Walter Reed where members get
free health care. In fact, if a member becomes critically ill and is
transported to Reed, their health care plan will be billed. No American is “told
what insurance to buy”, except that insurers must meet coverage standards.
No Congressman
has, or has ever had, a “lifetime salary.” They have a retirement program which
is OK but less than most executives of mid-sized or large companies. A two-term
Representative failing to get a third term gets no retirement at all, since
vesting requires five years’ service.
To put this into perspective, a three
term Congressman who loses his seat is "vested" and can draw
retirement, but only at age 62, at which time his retirement would be 12.5% of
his high three salary years. If you were elected in 2006 at age 36 to the House
and were defeated in 2012, you wait 20 years to draw any retirement benefit,
and then it would be 12.5% of $174,000, or $21,759. Not bad, but...a Navy
Commander, (even if he was Supply Corps or JAG office and had never even gone
to sea) retiring at 42 after 20 years would earn a minimum of $50,000 annually
and would have been paid over $1 million dollars in retirement by age 62, at
which time he also would draw Social Security.
Lest you think
this is a military phenomenon, let's look at a civilian 20-year career:
firefighter. The average 20-year NYFD retiree earns in retirement just under $100k annually! NYPD is similar. Obviously, firefighters, law enforcement
personnel and the military risk their lives while employed, but this is about
retirement compensation, not active duty salary. That's what hazardous duty
supplements are for. By comparison, Congress does fairly well, but not nearly as well
as the lie portrays!
The vast majority of immigrants, legal or
undocumented, work, many below minimum wage. In many cases they do jobs which other
citizens won’t do. The statement in the letter is simply false. Immigrants can’t
“demand benefits,” because they are prohibited from welfare. Can’t get it.
Nope.
Barack Obama provided a “real” birth certificate. Period.
The decision in the Uranium One instance was the unanimous
decision of a 16 agency committee, of which Mrs. Clinton was one vote. Apparently,
Mrs. Clinton intimidated the other 15 members, which included secretaries of
Treasury (he chaired), Energy, Defense, and others. By the way, all these persons were confirmed
by a Republican controlled Senate! The rest of the story, untold by Trumpists
and others because it proves the lie to their rants, is that the US buys (and, historically, has bought) most
of its Uranium from others who mine it in our own western states in the
first place, and since neither Uranium One or Rosatom holds an export license, whatever
they extract can’t be exported. Sorry, no “uranium to Russia.”
Of moderately greater interest, one year after Mrs. Clinton
left office, the same committee voted unanimously to allow the sale of western
mining leases in the ore rich Dewey Burdock tract in South Dakota to China
based Azarga Uranium, who does hold an export license.
Remember the Republican outrage over that? I didn’t think so.
The Clinton foundation remains a highly rated charity by
Charity Watch, four stars out of four, based on transparency and expenditures. No one named Clinton earns or takes money from it.
Every word of the above is categorically factual.
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