Congressional Pension Accountability Act
CONGRESSIONAL PENSION ACCOUNTABILITY ACT
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Mr. HOYER. It is tough to be in the minority, isn't it? I feel your pain. I want you to know that.
Of course, that perfect bill of which all of you speak could have been passed in 1995 or 1996 or even 1997 or 1998 or 1999 or 2000, or even 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, and, yes, 2006 when you were in charge, and we had no say as to what you passed or what you didn't pass. But you didn't pass this bill. You passed this bill through the House; it is not law. It is not law. And you had the President, you had the Senate, and you had the House.
There is now a claim that we have heard now for 2 weeks: The energy bill could have been better. Yes, but many of you voted for it. You indicated, many of you, that the minimum wage bill could have been perhaps better by adding some things on, but 82 of you voted for it.
This bill could be better, but it is timely. It is timely to do the right thing.
Mr. Kirk has a number of suggestions. I think they are pretty good suggestions. I don't mind them. He asked about income tax. Now, we all pay income taxes. All Americans pay income taxes, or some have preference items they avoid, assuming they are doing it legally. But that is not part of our duties as a Member of Congress; it is part of our duties as a citizen.
What this bill seeks to say is when you raise your right hand and swear that you will serve your constituents faithfully and honestly, that you do that; that you don't do it for some outside lobbyist or interest group. And that if you do, we are not going to pay your pension. That is all this bill says.
It is late in coming, but it is never too late to do the right thing, and I would hope that every Member of this House when the roll is called on this bill will say to their constituents that I am going to take pensions away from those who abuse their power and responsibility given to them by the American people as Members of this House and undermine the faith and trust that the American people have in Members and in this House.
I agree with Mr. Terry, it could be better. We could add things to it. Perhaps we will. As a matter of fact, we just added something, as you have pointed out, because we thought that not only is lying bad, but asking people to lie is bad. It is called a fancy word, subornation of perjury. But what it is, is asking your staffer to say, don't tell the grand jury I did that. That is essentially what that says. So you can't tell your staff to go to the grand jury, when the grand jury says, does Member A, B or C take money or lie or do something or take money to vote on something, if you ask them to do that, and, after all, they work for you, you have control of their salary, you are also going to be subject to loss of pension.
So I agree with those that say this bill is not perfect. They are right, but a lot of the bills that we have passed, as a matter of fact probably no bill that we have passed has been perfect, but this is a good bill. As my friend, the former Congressman from Kentucky would say, ``And I tell you that frankly.'
My expectation is we are going to have almost every Member, I would hope 100 percent of the House say to the American people we will not allow Members who misuse and fail your trust to get your taxpayers' dollars paid to them in pensions. Vote for this bill. It is a good bill.
I want to congratulate NANCY BOYDA for her leadership in bringing this bill to the floor, and I urge Members on both sides of the aisle, in a bipartisan way, vote to say to the American people, we won't take your pensions if we do wrong by you, and we won't let others do as well.
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