Perry Entitled to Big State Pension, Health Benefits
As a Texas governor and presidential candidate, Rick Perry has repeatedly turned to the marketplace for policy solutions to health care and retirement security.
But as a private citizen, Perry has generally relied on the government.
Perry is a member of what the Texas Employees Retirement System (ERS) calls “the elected class,” which provides the kind of lucrative pension benefits that have all but disappeared from the private sector.
Under its provisions, Perry, 61, could have retired at age 50 with lifetime health care paid for by the state. To the annoyance of his opponents, he is still in office ...
Comments (31)
Doug Coleman
How can Perry collect 2 retirment benfits one from ERS andthe nsocial security? Why is an retired elcted offical can draw from 2 retiement where Texas teachers cannot?
Stella Fitzgibbons
Meanwhile my uninsured patients have nothing like the rehab that Gabby Giffords got, or access even to outpatient physical therapy for their bad backs (let alone experimental stem cell treatments like those the guv had for his). And Texas hospitals struggle to keep their doors open on the fraction of costs that government health plans pay them.
I wish somebody would propose that elected officials have to put up with the healthcare available from Medicaid. Let them spend months trying to find a primary card doctor or taking second-choice meds for their asthma because Medicaid's prescription budget was cut...again.
Maité Landa via Texas Tribune on Facebook
if Perry is an "ardent foe of government" why has been in getting rich off it for all these years?
Jacquelyn Stewart via Texas Tribune on Facebook
what a "Rainy Day" this will be....
Mark Paulson via Texas Tribune on Facebook
All hat, no cattle.
Debby Swick via Texas Tribune on Facebook
He likes having $$$$ and living free off us Texas tax payers.
Stanley Moore via Texas Tribune on Facebook
He has been on some part of the Government tit all his life.
hans5162@ix.netcom.com hans
Michael Quinn Sullivan has his own snout in the public pension trough through the Texas Army National Guard. I want to see him give that up or shut up. The reality is that public pensions are sustainable if properly funded. Where they get into trouble is when the legislature decides to cut the funding, as they did this year. Right now, ERS and TRS are funded at about 82% of projected liabilities, which is prudent.
Larry Hilliard via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Congressman John Carter (R 31-TX) is in the same category...except he has an even better deal. He is a retired TX judge so he gets all the perks Perry does/will AND he'll get a federal pension after he retires. Oh, and did I mention that I just received a letter from him today saying that he supports continued cuts to benefits and retirement for "regular" federal employees and retirees?
Mimi Purnell via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Oh, please, like that's what he'd live on? He'll be on every board of every business he's "assisted" w/tax payer $s.
Tom Osen via Texas Tribune on Facebook
If that is what it takes to get rid of him, then so be it.
Think I'll run for guvner.
WUSRPH
Perry may have all that coming..but he and Anita no longer own a home (having sold the place in College Station he had trouble remembering he owned wheh it came time to file his financial disclosures). I suspect that when he returns to Texas full-time shortly after the South Carolina primary he will begin working on a solution for that...There must be some federal funds somewhere in the State Budget that he can tap with a rider to the Appropriations Bill to buy him that little $10,000 per month shack the taxpayers are paying for now. His budget people are more than qualified to slip one in that it will take a Philadelphia lawyer to figure out...(That is how Bullock got his museum...by the way.) .But, if that is what it takes to get him to not run again in 2014, it will be more than worth it.
Ronnie Odom via Texas Tribune on Facebook
The guy will make missions a year as a lobbyist. Abnd surely he won't take S.S. or health insurance. He certainly doesn't want the rest of us to have it.
Nancy Rodriquez
Perry stole money from a Texas government funded program, entitled, HEAP, to help pay for elderly and poor's utilities in Summer and Winter. In doing so, he may have caused deaths among the elderly and poor, if they were too hot or too cold. Perry did this, so that he could look like Texas was winning the battle on taxes/economy. Something is not right, for him to be able to have benefits even when he is done with being governor of Texas.
Perry is a smooth talker, and it is so easy to see through the hype, when people really pay attention to what he really does to others.
psymetric
Doug Coleman, some school districts participate in social security, and their teachers can collect social security just like any other person who qualifies.
What irritates me is the fact that those in the "elected class" appear to get benefits that exceed those of regular state employees. Can anyone provide a justification for the special treatment?
patricia bird
i work for the state of TX and i can collect my SS and their retirement benefits - our retirement, ERS, is taken out of our checks monthly and like a 401K, it is matched - you have to work a certain number of years to get the benefits - it is your age plus the number of years you work must add up to 75...teachers are eligible for a government pension such as that provided by TRS who are also eligible for Social Security benefits are subject to two offset rules that can reduce the amount of Social Security benefits they are eligible to receive.
makes you wonder how perry is railing against government and wanting them to go away while he is collecting from them right and left...one should ask him if he plans to not take SS since he gets so much from the state...i'm sure his answer would be "ah no"
Bambi Clark via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Voters should run him out of this state...
Jim Hsu via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Oh he'll give up his pension and entitlements, just as he always says no to federal financial aids and stimuli, because he talks about secession all the time, and he is a man of his word and doggone it if Perry sez Texas doesn't need any federal help he never will take any federal help..... RIGHT?? HELLO??
Jim Hsu via Texas Tribune on Facebook
I'll PAY his pension if he promises to retire from TX governorship pronto. Y'all just thank me later.
Sharon Richard via Texas Tribune on Facebook
And they say teachers are "double-dipping" if they get their pension and social security. Shameful.
Vickie Merchant via Texas Tribune on Facebook
That would go with his brain as well. Nothing passes back and forth.
Jacqueline Lousier via Texas Tribune on Facebook
I think he shouldn't get a penny - too bad we can't vote on that
Mike Barnes via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Typical do as I say, not as I do.
WUSRPH
There is an easy explanation: Hypocrisy is the Officlal State Repligion ot Texas Politics and Perry is the High Priest...
Robert Smith
Perry Government Entitlements..........
Texas' "oops" governor recently stated in his book: “Why is the government collecting your tax money for retirement and health care programs? That’s not a stated constitutional role.”
Perry makes statements like the one above when government help is requested by poor and middle class Texas families who work very hard and struggle every day to pay their bills and put food on the table.
But, he has no moral or ethical problem in milking the taxpayers for his OWN retirement and health care benefits.
He certainly relishes, enjoys, savors, appreciates and delights in his OWN entitlements at the expense of hard working, honest, principled Texans who genuinely need government assistance.
Hypocrisy is defined as: insincerity, double standard, and two faced.
Has this man no shame???!!!
DANIEL JONES
If the gov. had to resign in order to collect his TX retirement benefits, shouldn't there have been an election to fill the vacancy of governor?
think
Why are comments asking for Perry's recall petition being deleted. Where is the free speech on Texas Tribune?
Texas is corruption capital.
WUSRPH
You can call for the recall of Gov. Perry (or any other state government official) all you want, but it is never going to happen. Not because of any corruption or disregard of the public will or any trampling on freedom of speech----but simply because THERE IS NO PROVISION in the State Constitution or State law providing for a Recall of any state government official, including members of the Legislature, the Governor or any of the other elected statewide officers. In short, you can not do it. It is not legal in Texas.....The only alternative would be impeachment by the Texas House and conviction by the Texas Senate...and that is not going to happen either....
WUSRPH
Also, there was no vacancy created when Perry "retired"....Perry did not resign...He did not have to...He is now working for the state as a retired "double dipper"--with the potential to become a "triple" or even a "quadruple dipper".....Even if he had resigned there would be no special election to fill a vacancy..That is what the Lt. Governor is for...Just like the Vice President of the U.S., he would move up to the governorship if the governor's office becomes vacant....
think
So the "laws" are rigged so that rampant raiding by politically dominating organized rings in a state controlled by and benefitted by GOP can't hold them accountable.
Talk about abusing state government for profiteering lifetime politicals.
It is like the mob.
Don King
I have been an Elected Official for nearly 30 years. In our Constitution of this Great State, My office does not come with a Salary. Now that I am getting to have 30 years I am told that I have no Retirement. This can't be right. Espically after serving the Citizens of My County and State for 30 years. Not sure where the Justice is? Or where to turn too?