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Corporate America has loved “early retirement”. This is where instead of laying off your older workers, you offer them a cash buyout. They take the lump sum, and head home at 52 to take IT classes at the local community college. It’s brutal, but has shown to be very effective for quietly getting rid of folks who would be difficult to layoff. We didn’t lay them off, just gave them an opportunity that some of them chose to take…

There’s clearly been a change in the country these last couple years. People want new ideas and new leadership. The election the other day showed that. But incumbency still is incredibly powerful and many congresspeople won’t be replaced because of their long relationship with their constituents.

So, could the Democrats give the people fresh choices in districts where congresspeople are entrenched? What if the Dems came up with an early retirement package for congresspeople? Give them financial incentive and they may well choose to leave their new-found minority positions. Especially in the House, minority status is not nearly as much fun as majority.

Dems are going to push through a hike in the federal minimum wage in January. I have some ideas of some other things they could include in that legislation that would be progressive, and also constitute an early retirement package for any Congresspeople so inclined to take it. For anyone who runs for office at the end of their next term:

• A 20% pay cut for all legislators. The American people have seen wage stagnation for the last 40 years, Congress should acknowledge that by resetting their wages to a more realistic level. This would be a great message to the middle class.
• A corresponding reduction in the annual salary retired Congresspeople pull every year for the rest of their lives. They get full pay till their dead, you know. By cutting salary by 20%, the annual retirement pay drops, and that adds up to hundreds of thousands of dollars over the period of retirement.
• Cancelling the free health coverage for all retired Legislators who retire after 2008. The message: we have a lousy health care, we’re going to try to fix it, but until we do Legislators won’t be getting preferential treatment. We’ll pay our own way until you don’t have to.
• Reallocate the money saved to support for wounded soldiers and families of those killed in Iraq.

What normal person in America wouldn’t support this? We’re continually told that Americans don’t trust politicians, what better way for Democrats to gain trust that acknowleding the lousy prediciment Americans are in regarding wages and health care. This is a great populist statement that shows direct support for the troops.

Bush might veto it, but try explaining that position to the average person paying $1000/month for health care for her family.

And, it’s an early retirement package for the old dogs, creating open seats in 2008 when the environment will still likely favor change. Democrats may lose Robert Byrd, but overall I think most retirements would be Republicans who see the next 2 years as pretty unappealing.

This would be a bold populist statement that would require Democratic legislators to put their own pocketbooks aside for the good of the country. And it would set the tone for the next two years, even when most of the work they’ll do the rest of their tenure won’t be populist in nature. First impressions are important.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 9th, 2006 at 9:52 am and is filed under Civics. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.