Sacramento Union, February 23, 2007

Another Golden Fleece

With the arrival of the New Year came the arrival of our new Democratic Congressional majority – a majority whose election platforms were saturated with grandiose promises to restore fiscal responsibility and integrity in Congress – to “clean house” so to speak.

Although our elected representatives are certainly not lacking for opportunities to do just that, I still would like to offer this: Pass legislation ending taxpayer-funded pensions for congressmen convicted of felonies, currently permitted under federal law.

You read that correctly. Taxpaying Americans are funding the post-Congress avocations of such fallen legislators as Randy “Duke” Cunningham and Bob Ney.

During the past 25 years, the National Taxpayers Union reports that at least 20 lawmakers have been convicted of serious crimes while in office. All 20 received, or are currently receiving, taxpayer-funded pensions. The NTU report is a list of the “who’s who” of political stars gone bad.

For example, Dan Rostenkowski of Illinois, former chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee (considered by many to be the most powerful committee in Congress) was sent to prison after being indicted on 17 counts. Charges against Rostenkowski included keeping “ghost” employees on his payroll, using congressional funds to buy gifts such as chairs and ashtrays for friends, and trading in officially-purchased stamps for cash at the House post office.

In 1996, he pleaded guilty to reduced charges of mail fraud. He was fined and sentenced to 17 months in prison. Today, ex-con Rosty receives an estimated $126,000 a year in federal pension money. Not only is this repugnant from the perspective of a taxpayer, but it also seems that he is “entrepreneurial” enough to do just fine without this pension money.

California’s Randy “Duke” Cunningham, a former Navy fighter ace, resigned from the House in November 2005 after pleading guilty to accepting $2.4 million in bribes from defense contractors and underreporting his income for 2004. Cunningham used the money to buy a mansion, a suburban Washington condo, a yacht, and a Rolls Royce.

Cunningham pleaded guilty to federal charges of conspiracy to commit bribery, mail fraud, wire fraud, and tax evasion. In March 2006, he received a sentence of eight years and four months in prison and was ordered to pay $1.8 million in restitution. Disloyal “Duke” collects a congressional and military pension estimated at $64,000 a year.

Ohio’s James Traficant is also in prison. Traficant was expelled from Congress in 2002 after being convicted of taking bribes, filing false tax returns, racketeering, and forcing his aides to perform chores at his farm in Ohio and on his houseboat in Washington. He is currently serving an eight-year prison sentence scheduled to end in 2010. Traficant receives about $40,000 a year in federal pension money. So that’s eight years multiplied by $40,000: that’s one heck of a party the day he gets out of jail – for which all taxpayers should receive an invitation. Don’t scrimp on the appetizers!

In all seriousness, none of these felons deserve a cent of taxpayer money to fund their pensions. Taxpayers are already on the hook to pay about $28,000 a year to incarcerate these miscreants. These elected officials betrayed the public trust and enriched themselves in the process. Footing the bill for their pensions is salt in the public wounds.

Taxpayers in larger states like California, Florida, Illinois, and New York should be especially outraged because they pay more federal taxes than most Americans and are, therefore, supporting these crooks to a greater degree.

The best option is for both houses of Congress to adopt common legislation that disqualifies a congressman convicted of any serious crime, while in office, from collecting any taxpayer-funded portion of their federal pension. Currently, a congressman can lose their pension only for treason or espionage.

The House and Senate have both passed bills, which must be reconciled and approved before President Bush can sign a pension penalty law. Taxpayers should insist that the final version stops public pensions for all serious offenses, not just a few select crimes. This long-overdue reform would send a strong signal to both Democratic and Republican lawmakers that taxpayers are not patsies to be rolled for their financial gain. For forcing taxpayers to fund these pensions for so long, California congressional representatives on both sides of the aisle have earned the Pacific Research Institute’s California Golden Fleece Award.

Lawrence J. McQuillan, Ph.D., is Director of Business and Economic Studies at the California-based Pacific Research Institute. He can be contacted at LMcQuillan@pacificresearch.org.