Fact Check About Congressional Pay, Health Care, Etc.
There's a TeaMail (as I call them) going around, perhaps you received it (as I did thanks to my RW relatives), supposedly sent by Warren Buffet [sic](right, that's how he communicates with the public, and he can't spell his own name.) It's meant to rile people up to be angry at Congress, and, more importantly imho, reassert the "both sides are to blame" meme that keeps the Rs from accruing their full share of blame for the dysfunction caused in large part by their obstructionism (Let's just say it: The Republicans are the problem.)
The email rants about how we must put and end to various abuses by congresscritters related to pay raises, tenure, health care, etc., and insists that we must institute the proposed "Congressional Reform Act of 2011" to do so.
I was suspicious, as I always am, of chain-mail (so medieval), especially ones sent by my RW family members (though, it should be said, those are pretty much the only ones I get.) My research turned up this article, which says the email is filled with inaccuracies. I'd appreciate any verification and/or corrections of anything Ms. Milligan states in that piece.
I'll start: I doubt that this spam-mail is the answer to, "Why are so many members of Congress retiring?" which the author claims.
The article includes the full text of the TeaMail and the response, a few excerpts of which follow:
-Congress has not been voting pay raises for itself. Since 1994, Congress has gone without a pay raise nine times (four of those times occurring in the past six years.) ~the article is from March 2012~
-Congress doesn't get free healthcare or even a special plan. Like all federal employees, they choose (and pay premiums for) a private healthcare plan from a menu of choices.
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