You really have to hand it to Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner, the Republican congressman from Wisconsin’s Fifth District. He is unapologetic about how he benefits from government wages and benefits – and all the financial perquisites of his office – even as he rails against government spending.
Sensenbrenner’s fallback philosophy on many issues is that the free market is the solution. Thus, Sensenbrenner opposes the health care reform act passed under President Barack Obama and instead calls for a “market-based system” of health insurance. But Sensenbrenner himself is covered by the federal health insurance plan, which offers much better coverage than what most Americans can afford. The plan costs about $10,000 per federal employee, counting deductibles and out-of-pocket payments. Sensenbrenner has never shown any interest in ending that benefit for members of Congress like himself though his net worth, as our Milwaukee News Buzz has reported, is about $14.9 to $20.9 million. (Assets are reported in ranges on federal disclosure forms.)
Sensenbrenner will also benefit – and rather handsomely – from his federal pension. He is part of an older group of congressional members, those elected before 1984, and Sensenbrenner will therefore be able to collect 56.26 percent of his annual pay (averaged from his three highest paid years). Given the current pay for members of Congress is $174,000, Sensenbrenner should collect in excess of $96,000 per year.
Then there is his state pension. Sensenbrenner served from 1969 to 1979 as a member of the Wisconsin Legislature and is already collecting that pension of $28,900 per year, even as he collects his federal salary of $174,000, as News Buzz has reported. Sensenbrenner’s spokesperson Wendy Riemann told News Buzz he began collecting his pension in 2007 “after he learned that if he passed away before starting to receive the money, he would lose all those earnings.”
Sensenbrenner is also among the many Republican politicians who fought to retain the Bush tax cuts, including those for the wealthiest Americans, which of course includes Sensenbrenner himself. Democrats and President Obama are still pushing to end the tax cuts for the wealthy, those earning more than $250,000 per household, which would bring the tax for them back to 39.6 percent, up from the current 35 percent, and in line with the rate imposed in the 1990s.
This small difference has a very generous payoff for someone like Sensenbrenner. Even a conservative 5 percent annual return on his total assets of $14.9 million to $20.9 million would range from $745,000 to $1,045,000 a year. In addition, Sensenbrenner earns more than $200,000 per year in federal pay and his state pension. The House Ways and Means Committee has estimated that taxpayers in this range of annual earnings could get a $10,000 to $100,000 tax hike if the Bush tax cut for the most wealthy was eliminated.
Sensenbrenner has issued statements defending the need to retain all the Bush tax cuts to help the economy, but Obama and the Democrats agree on the cuts for 97 percent of Americans. Sensenbrenner’s statements on this issue have never specifically addressed the impact of a narrowly targeted hike on the top three percent of taxpayers, the group that includes him.
Then there are the travel junkets Sensenbrenner goes on. As a 2006 Milwaukee Magazine feature on the Congressman by Erik Gunn found, taxpayers funded some $139,000 in travel by Sensenbrenner between 1994 and 2005. Sensenbrenner has often been a leader in this category.
There may be other members of Congress who have found so many ways to benefit from the federal and state government’s largesse, but I suspect the list isn’t long. And how many on that list are meanwhile so adamant that the government must slash its spending on the rest of us?
Myths About Water Pollution
A recent survey of public opinions on water might sound like a snoozer, but there is an interesting tale to tell about it. It was commissioned by the Southeastern Wisconsin Watersheds Trust, a little known group formed in 2008 as a partnership of local governments, environmental groups and others concerned with protecting the quality of water in the 1,100-square-mile Greater Milwaukee Watersheds. The group’s formation is just another sign of how water is becoming a big issue in Milwaukee.
The survey uncovered a huge contradiction: that the public believes the major sources of water pollution are sewer overflows and industrial wastes. In fact, as the trust’s leader Jeff Martinka noted in an op-ed column in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel last week, 90 percent of all water pollution in the area comes from urban and rural runoff: from dirt, oil, bird droppings, pet waste, pesticides and fertilizers on lawns, salt used on driveways and streets, and other sources.
Although the survey showed some citizens are taking action to reduce this kind of runoff and others might also be willing to do so, they don’t really think it will have a huge impact because, of course, they think it’s all about those sewer overflows.
That’s understandable given the years of screaming headlines about overflows that ran in the Journal Sentinel. In fact, the overflows have dropped from 50-60 per year to an average of 2.6 annually since the Deep Tunnel was built in 1994. That figure, by the way, comes from a recent story in the JS, which has completely changed the style of its coverage in the last few years. However, conservative talk radio still tries to hammer home a misleading view of the situation.
In short, what the recent survey has uncovered is a huge education problem. We are more likely to see changes in behavior by citizens if they know how much impact they can have. This is a tremendous opportunity for the state’s largest newspaper to educate people about the issue – not with short snoozer stories like the one that ran about this survey, but with dramatic front page stories that help all readers to see what a tremendous impact they can have by taking actions to protect our valuable rivers and Great Lake.
The Buzz
-I really enjoy the Sunday Journal Sentinel Crossroads column by former JS reporter Steve Walters, who now works with WisconsinEye, the nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that televises proceedings at the state Capitol. Walters is a veteran reporter who really knows the Capitol and, I’d argue, seems a bit more balanced in his views these days. His most recent column is a timely warning that the administration of Gov. Scott Walker might try to hamstring the Government Accountability Board, whose formation was the result of bipartisan reform in the wake of the caucus scandal.
-Blogger Jay Bullock offers a well-reasoned objection to a JS PolitiFact column on County Exec candidate Jim Sullivan.
-Speaking of Sullivan, he is clearly looking for a wedge issue to show why liberals should vote for him rather than Chris Abele, and has hit – and hit hard – on the county bus system, as a News Buzz story reports.
