OPEN THE BOOKS- A PROJECT OF AMERICAN TRANSPARENCY
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Our Call… Open the Federal Pensions
 The Dark Secrets of Federal Pensions
It’s national Sunshine Week across America. During this week, good government groups advocate for open government and transparency. One area that remains hidden is federal pensions.
Imagine if you could review your congressman’s pension including amount contributed, years to break-even and total payout to life expectancy.
Recently, our organization, American Transparency, filed a Freedom of Information Act request to reveal individual federal pensions. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) rejected it as “a clear unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.” Still, our request for the active salaries of the 2.5 million federal employees was fulfilled with seven-year histories. We post these salaries on our website, OpenTheBooks.com.
But if active salaries (by name) can be transparent, why would posting federal retiree pension amounts, service credits, and contributions be an invasion of privacy? The same privacy law underlies both records. The Obama Administration’s legal argument against revealing pension data is arbitrary.
Taxpayer groups should not have to file a lawsuit to see this data.
Last year, former IRS executive and now federal retiree Lois Lerner was held in contempt of Congress after pleading the fifth to forgo answering the questions from the House Oversight Committee. Citizens deserve to know Lerner’s annual pension. But estimates by two DC think tanks vary by over $52,000 annually, or nearly $2 million in lifetime payout. What did we find at the state level to justify the opening of the federal pensions?
How are federal pensions calculated?
You are not going to believe it’s the 21st century. The founder of OpenTheBooks.com Adam Andrzejewski lays out a great argument to open the federal pensions to transparency…
It’s Sunshine Week across America. Join the Transparency Revolution!
 Matthew Tyrmand, Deputy Director
Adam Andrzejewski, Chairman
P.S. Your help is needed today. Please help us post “every dime online in real time” across America.
Please make a tax deductible gift of $25, $50, $100, $250 or $500 today.
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