West Burlington, Iowa

Falcon,

One major error on the Ryan 2013 Budget proposal is on page 109 of the budget where it mentions the Railroad Retirement Tier 1 program. It’s my understanding the railroad retirement fund is solely funded by the railroad employees and the railroad and has never been funded by taxpayers or anyone other than railroad workers. Mr. Ryan’s budget panel apparently thinks it is or they just don’t have a clue about what they put in the bill.

If railroad personnel get more in benefits than Social Security it’s because they paid more into their retirement fund by design and again nothing to do with Social Security.

Someone should inform Mr. Ryan that The Railroad Retirement Benefit is funded by railroad employees themselves and not taxpayers and it has nothing to do with Social Security.

The below passage is found on page 109 of the proposed Ryan Budget for fiscal year 2013, House Report 112-421

Conform Railroad Retirement Tier 1 Benefits to Social Security Benefits. Tier 1 benefits for railroad retirees are supposed to mimic Social Security benefits, but they are more generous than Social Security in many ways. This option would conform Tier 1 so that its benefits would equal those of Social Security, with an estimated savings to taxpayers of $2 billion over 10 years.

What Paul Ryan is not telling the American people is that the railroad pension fund has absolutely nothing to do with taxpayers. The Railroad pension fund is completely funded by railroad workers themselves. Not one dime of taxpayer money is used to fund this pension plan. So, why would a conservative politician in Washington say otherwise? My guess is he doesn’t have a clue and neither did the writers of the bill.

It’s quite clear neither party in Washington has any concept of how to write a bill or propose a bill that’s fair and honest to the American people. Look at that ill prepared Obamacare bill the democrats signed into law when none of them even knew what was in it. Then that so called speaker of the house Nancy Pelosi say’s we’ll have to pass the bill to find out what’s in it. That’s a classic example of what class of people we have in congress misrepresenting us time and time again. Pelosi’s only concern is how much she can line her pockets before living off the taxpayer’s the rest of her life, not that she hasn’t been already.

Ryan’s budget proposal will have to be edited totally before it’s passed provided congress knows what edited means and all the ill prepared or misrepresented sections removed such as the Railroad Retirement Benefit section. Remember this is a proposal and will require a total editing job to clean it up and make it workable.

Also, the quality of people in Washington is nowhere near what it was 25 years ago on back to 1778.

-Concerned