Yes, I do feel strongly about this

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Yes, I do feel strongly about this.



No one has been able to explain to me why young men and women serve in the
U.S. Military for 20 years, risking their lives protecting freedom, and only get
50% of their pay on retirement. While Politicians hold their political positions
in the safe confines of the capital, protected by these same men and women, and
receive full-pay retirement after serving one term. It just does not make any sense.





If each person who receives this will forward it on to 20 people, in three days,
most people in The United States of America will have the message. This is
one proposal that really should be passed around.

Proposed 28th Amendment to the United States Constitution: "Congress shall
make no law that applies to the citizens of the United States that does not apply
equally to the Senators and/or Representatives; and, Congress shall make no law
that applies to the Senators and/or Representatives that does not apply equally to
the citizens of the United States ."

You are one of my 20+. I passed it on, will you?

"If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice," and these brave soldiers have given you that right!!
 
Yes, I do feel strongly about this.



No one has been able to explain to me why young men and women serve in the
U.S. Military for 20 years, risking their lives protecting freedom, and only get
50% of their pay on retirement. While Politicians hold their political positions
in the safe confines of the capital, protected by these same men and women, and
receive full-pay retirement after serving one term. It just does not make any sense.

Agree. My retirement after 24 years as a Major (I was a Warrant Officer and took a direct commission to 1LT.....should have stayed a Warrant Officer in retrospect). A friend, who passed away a few years ago served 4 years in the Navy and took a job as a mail carrier. He retired after 20 some odd years as a mail carrier. After we compared retirements and health care benefits I realized I would have been better off as a mail carrier.

It doesn't seem fair but to be honest I wouldn't change anything. I had a thrilling career and was aware that I'd have to work my ass off to supplement my retirement, particularly when I knew my kids would be going to college.

Truth is, the military has always been considered second class citizens by the public in general. That didn't just happen, it's been that way since the Roman Empire.
 
I don't think any .gov employee should get a guaranteed retirement. How many private companies have an actual pension plan with GUARANTEED money after a set amount of years for the REST OF YOUR LIFE?

How many?
 
I worked for 29 years at my last employer. The only retirement I have is about $175k in a 401 plan. My years in the Navy I only earned 8k, 12k, 14k and 17k. My first year out I made 28k (1989). Staying in the military for 24 years for a pension equals a long period of very low earnings. The life long payments received will go a ways to making up for that period of time.
 
No public employee local, state, or fed should have a guaranteed pension, quite simply the economics don't work.

+1.

Defined benefit pensions as practiced today are simply a lie. They are deferred pay, backup up by nothing, and dependent on investment growth that isn't going to happen. It's no surprise that the only significant source of such plans is the government -- the only entity that can tax its way out of the problem. And that just means the taxpayers of the future will be paying for the work delivered by government employees today.

The way to treat military personnel fairly is to pay them more NOW. Don't promise some bullshit 20 years down the road. Just pay them. They can save. They can invest. They can determine their retirement needs just like anyone else. They deserve the right to make these decisions.

Do this for all government employees. Let's have an honest debate about the right levels of pay for every one of them. Don't exacerbate a problem that is already out of control.
 
So we have .mil people retiring at 38 years old. Collecting a military pension while working as a GS worker for another 20 years. So at 58 years old they have TWO retirement packages. TWO guaranteed no matter what the market/economy is doing. Solid plan for a sputtering country.
 
So we have .mil people retiring at 38 years old. Collecting a military pension while working as a GS worker for another 20 years. So at 58 years old they have TWO retirement packages. TWO guaranteed no matter what the market/economy is doing. Solid plan for a sputtering country.

It gets worse than that you know.

You can be a "federal technician" working at a guard/reserve base on a WG scale, while a member of whatever unit you are attached to federally. So you are doing one job, but collecting two pay checks for it, and building two retirements from it. One job. Two paychecks. Two guaranteed retirements.

Then you get out and work for the post office or the FAA or the shipyard.
 
Its a great idea but the .gov doesn't have the money.

But, I do think that congress and the senate should be taking significant pay cuts and have their travel budgets lowered.
 
Weird part is people like me who served ten years then got booted with a medical discharge make more thru the VA then those that do 20+ years.

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I think it's funny when a public employee tells me they "earned" their pension, earned, smearned, the government is holding up it's part of a agreement with you, for now.......
 
So, if I understand this correctly, those who risk their lives ( or are prepared to do so) get 50%, but those who risk OUR lives at their whim get 100%? In this country, it almost makes sense.[bs2]
 
I wish I could articulate the conversation I had with an ex-town selectman who told me that because he served the town, (of 500+) as a selectman, he's entitled to and receiving a state pension...I'd articulate it, but it makes me so angry, I can't...
 
My father-in-law served in the Navy in WWII, he now has dementia and is in a nursing home, the reason he is in a private nursing facility is because the VA was more expensive!! He gets some medical benefits, not much, just really Dr. visits is all it pays for, my wife and her brother checked intyo why he wouldn't have some type of better benefits, and they were told "He is NOT service connected"!!! They replied "WHAT!?!?!" well it seems that his dementia wasn't caused by the service, even though he also has tinitis (damaged ear drums) from the big guns on the ship he was on, (says so in his medical records) he also has a couple other conditions that may or may not be service related, what it boils down to is here is a man that servied his country in WWII and is treated like a nobody by the VA, so as we see it the VA says thanks for serving but screw you, we aren't gonna help you now when YOU need it! Sorry about the rant but it just burns me how a person puts their life on the line for the country and then he get screwed for it!
 
My father-in-law served in the Navy in WWII, he now has dementia and is in a nursing home, the reason he is in a private nursing facility is because the VA was more expensive!! He gets some medical benefits, not much, just really Dr. visits is all it pays for, my wife and her brother checked intyo why he wouldn't have some type of better benefits, and they were told "He is NOT service connected"!!! They replied "WHAT!?!?!" well it seems that his dementia wasn't caused by the service, even though he also has tinitis (damaged ear drums) from the big guns on the ship he was on, (says so in his medical records) he also has a couple other conditions that may or may not be service related, what it boils down to is here is a man that servied his country in WWII and is treated like a nobody by the VA, so as we see it the VA says thanks for serving but screw you, we aren't gonna help you now when YOU need it! Sorry about the rant but it just burns me how a person puts their life on the line for the country and then he get screwed for it!

That is a sad story, and a good example of why we should eliminate all government pensions and retirement benefits. Pay the men what they deserve right now. Let them decide how to prepare for retirement. Because the last thing we want is for this story to happen to veterans in the future. Trusting government to provide is a recipe for disaster. It breeds corruption, encourages financial mismanagement, and hides the true cost of government operations. Pay them now. Don't accept a promise to be paid later.
 
I don't mean to bust your rant bubble but in 1984 President Reagan eliminated pensions for both civil and political federal employees.

If each person who receives this will forward it on to 20 people, in three days, most people in The United States of America will have the message.
 
I don't mean to bust your rant bubble but in 1984 President Reagan eliminated pensions for both civil and political federal employees.

If each person who receives this will forward it on to 20 people, in three days, most people in The United States of America will have the message.

??? how is it i have one?
 
I don't mean to bust your rant bubble but in 1984 President Reagan eliminated pensions for both civil and political federal employees.

If each person who receives this will forward it on to 20 people, in three days, most people in The United States of America will have the message.

FERS
 

which has NO pension

1. you get the honor of paying social security
2. they match up to 5% in a 401k type plan, which you have the choice on investing in up to 5 federally managed funds (worried about the GOV taking your 401k? in the federal system they hold and manage the money)
3. required to pay 1% per year towards the "annuity". If you stay less than 5 years, you get NOTHING in return for your contribution. If you stay more than 5 yrs you get 1% or 1.1% per year of service of your top-three averaged salary paid to you indefinitely upon your post retirement age

I've calculated the annuity payout and payback endlessly trying to compare my private sector salary to .gov jobs on USA Jobs. If I worked for 30 yrs, retired at 65, and lived to 80 it works out to the .gov paying me an extra 2.5% per year, that amount compounding by 8% per year, then paying down in an annuity of 4%.

So in a nut shell, the FERS benefit would equal about 7.5% extra a year for me. Unless of course someone changes their mind in which case you're left with nothing.
 
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which has NO pension

1. you get the honor of paying social security
2. they match up to 5% in a 401k type plan, which you have the choice on investing in up to 5 federally managed funds (worried about the GOV taking your 401k? in the federal system they hold and manage the money)
3. required to pay 1% per year towards the "annuity". If you stay less than 5 years, you get NOTHING in return for your contribution. If you stay more than 5 yrs you get 1% or 1.1% per year of service of your top-three averaged salary paid to you indefinitely upon your post retirement age

I've calculated the annuity payout and payback endlessly trying to compare my private sector salary to .gov jobs on USA Jobs. If I worked for 30 yrs, retired at 65, and lived to 80 it works out to the .gov paying me an extra 2.5% per year, that amount compounding by 8% per year, then paying down in an annuity of 4%.

So in a nut shell, the FERS benefit would equal about 7.5% extra a year for me. Unless of course someone changes their mind in which case you're left with nothing.

That's sounds an awful lot like a pension to me.

It looks like a duck, it walks like a duck, it quacks like a duck, but politicians renamed it a bear and you believed them when they told you it wasn't a duck? [thinking]
 
Ah, so its still a pension but has some different rules. I didn't start federal service till 2005 and I'm under FERS.

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for the OP, it's a false chain mail plain and simple that's been debunked many times:

http://www.politifact.com/rhode-isl...message-says-members-congress-get-full-pensi/


Is it not a percentage of your highest three consecutive years of salary?

1.1% (or 1% for some) per year of service, e.g. 25% for 25 years of service, but the employee has to PAY IN 1% per year. for my scenario calculated above the .gov would be contributing 2.5% per year to get comparable investment return in the private sector

That's sounds an awful lot like a pension to me. [thinking]

Ah, so its still a pension but has some different rules. I didn't start federal service till 2005 and I'm under FERS.

people also think magazines are clips, cartridges are bullets, AR15s are M16s, and glocks pass through metal detectors but it doesn't make it true

you can go to any number of financial planners and buy an annuity like this. you can't buy a pension.
 
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