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July 01, 2013 02:58 PM UTC

New Coffman® Continues Epic Battle with Old Coffman

  • 8 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

We've written before about how the various versions of CD-6 Republican Rep. Mike Coffman continue to battle each other for Coffman supremacy. Last week New Coffman® was a featured player in a story from the National Journal about members of Congress who are double-dipping (and we aren't talking about potato chips):

Rep. Mike Coffman
Mike Coffman tries to explain the difference between New Coffman and Old Coffman (hint: New Coffman has more money)

To solve the debt crisis, Americans—who are already suffering in these tough economic times—will have to make even more sacrifices, Rep. Mike Coffman told his House colleagues last year. So, leaning on his military service, the 58-year-old Colorado Republican argued that members of Congress should take the first step and abolish their congressional pensions. “If there’s one thing I learned in both the United States Army and the Marine Corps about leadership, it was leading by example,” Coffman lectured them, pointing to his chest at a committee hearing. “Never ask anyone to do anything that you yourself would not be willing to do.” [Pols emphasis]

What Coffman left unsaid that day in a speech about his bill’s “symbolic” importance was that he was collecting a $55,547 state-government pension in addition to his congressional paycheck. Having spent two decades as an elected official in Colorado, he has received retirement benefits since 2009, the year he arrived in Congress.

New Coffman® claims that he is trying to "reform the system," but unfortunately for him, that message doesn't jibe with Old Coffman. Again, from the National Journal:

Reforming that system, Coffman says, is the point of his legislation to eliminate congressional pensions. “The part that I oppose is having a defined-benefit retirement plan for members of Congress—and have argued against a defined-benefit program when I was at the state level,” he tells National Journal.

But isn’t he taking part in a defined-benefit program?

“I am,” he replies. “I am.” [Pols emphasis]

Coffman’s $55,547 retirement benefit is a pittance in the scheme of the state’s pension-fund finances, but, as he argued when he presented his pension-axing bill in committee, symbolism matters. Colorado’s pension fund has been under duress in recent years. State workers there must now contribute more, work longer, and receive less after retirement under a 2010 law, says Katie Kaufmanis, a spokeswoman for Colorado’s retirement system.

A former state treasurer who had a seat on Colorado’s pension board, Coffman had previously taken on the most extreme cases of “double-dipping” at the state level, in which state or school employees would retire, collect a pension, and then be rehired by the exact same employer. “The state’s pension fund is bleeding red, and the little things like this are aggravating it,” Coffman told the Colorado Springs Business Journal in 2004. “Maybe we should suspend pensions [when people go] back to work,” he added.

Coffman’s situation isn’t exactly the same: He’s collecting state benefits and a federal paycheck, not double-dipping with the same employer. (“I’m a military retiree too,” Coffman notes. He resigned his state treasurer post in 2005 to rejoin the Marines and serve in Iraq.) Still, he stumbles in defending his decision to draw both a paycheck and a state pension. “I fought for reform when I was in state, and I’m fighting to reform the system now,” he says. “At states, they ought to end the defined-benefit portion programs.… I’m certainly a beneficiary of it, but at the state level that’s unsustainable, too, and that’s going to have to change.” [Pols emphasis]

Here's how Old Coffman explained his ethical anger to the Colorado Springs Business Journal back in 2004:

"Taxpayers deserve better from those serving in government," said Mike Coffman, Colorado’s state treasurer in a news release. "I will propose legislation next session to stop this abusive practice"…It might be legal, but Coffman maintains "there is no question of its lack of ethics." [Pols emphasis]

Old Coffman once said that there was "no question" that it was unethical to double-dip. New Coffman® has been doing it for years. Or, is that Old Coffman?

We're trying to joke a bit here, but in truth, this looks really bad for whichever Mike Coffman you choose to believe. You could run a million-dollar ad campaign based on the quotes here alone.

 

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8 thoughts on “New Coffman® Continues Epic Battle with Old Coffman”

  2. It is so easy to advocate for a position you do not truly favor if you know it has no chance in hell of being approved

    I a personally not opposed to defined benefit pensions. I AM opposed to double dips. I think Dingell deserves his pension. I think Udall will earn his. Without pensions our reps would all be people who are worth gazillions and only representing their ilk

  4. Is Coffman working on his THIRD public pension?

    How can a man who is a champion of "personal public pension benefit acquisition" condemn public pensions?

    It reminds me of Hillman's condemnations of "agri-welfare."

    I assume that Coffman is also receiving a military pension, thus he may very well be working on his THIRD public defined benefit plan pension . . . I am impressed.

    I cannot see how Coffman might find fault with the funding of the Colorado PERA pension system, which by the way, was funded at a 68.9 percent actuarial funded ratio in 2010 when the Colorado Legislature broke Colorado PERA retiree pension contracts.

    Here's why I cannot fathom Coffman finding fault with PERA's funding: Military pensions in the United States have a ZERO percent funding ratio.  They are "pay-as-you-go". . . provided directly from defense appropriations.  Just the thought of a "pay-as-you-go" ZERO percent funded public pension is enough to make Caldera's head explode like a volcano (leaving in its place . . . well a caldera.)  So, it would be somewhat hypocritical for Coffman to criticize the funding of Colorado PERA while simultaneously knee-deep in a military pension with a ZERO percent funding ratio.

    Also, a correction to the National Journal article, the article reads:

    "Colorado’s pension fund has been under duress in recent years.  State workers there must now contribute more, work longer, and receive less after retirement under a 2010 law, says Katie Kaufmanis, a spokeswoman for Colorado’s retirement system."

    It should be noted that the provisions of SB10-001 (the 2010 Colorado legislation that broke Colorado PERA retiree pension contracts) required that ONLY FUTURE WORKERS work longer to receive a pension benefit.  That is, this particular provision of SB10-001 was PROSPECTIVE . . . LEGAL.  The provision that broke PERA retiree contracts was RETROACTIVE, ILLEGAL.

    Colorado PERA's attorneys have gone so far as to include fuzzy language in their legal briefs implying that CURRENT state workers had to work longer for the same benefit under SB10-001, similar to this Kaufmanis quotation in the National Journal.

    There is much that Colorado PERA would prefer remain hidden.  I say we drag it all out into the sun.  “Sunlight Is the Best Disinfectant,” U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis.

    Having current workers in a public pension work longer as a part of a pension reform bill is a "less drastic" reform alternative under Colorado case law than is breach of the "fully-vested" pension contracts of PERA retirees.  It is sickening, but our Colorado public sector unions ignored the "less drastic" pension reform options in 2010 and went straight for breach of the fully-vested contracts of their retired "brothers and sisters."  Why?  The unions receive no money from retirees.  Follow the money.  Cui bono.

  5. coffman's part of a red Congress that just allowed Student Loan Rates to double. A red Congress that clusterfucked  a Farm Bill by trying to kill Food Stamps and low income student breakfast programs.

    He's absolutely the poster child for republican incompetence. He trots this shit out while the Government is paralized by is diaper staining ilk.

    He has no credibility.

  6. Bwahahahaha!

    You guys are so gilluble!

    I'll type slowly so you can read it….up is down. Solyndra! White is black. Kenya!  Marines! ooo-rah! Corps. Open Borders! 

  7. Speaking of Caldara, here's the Independence Institute on the General Assembly's failure to pay its public pension bills:

    "Solving the Funding Crises in PERA," by Barry Poulson, Senior Fellow, Independence Institute:

    "This difference between the actual contribution rate and actuarial required rate is not something new.  The so called ARC deficiency has varied between $300 million and $553 million every year for the past five years.  The cumulative ARC deficiency since 2003 is in excess of $3.5 billion."

    "The funding crises in PERA is actually worse than that reported in their annual financial report.  That is because PERA assumes an 8% rate of return on assets and uses that estimate to discount liabilities in the pension plan."

    http://tax.i2i.org/files/2012/05/IP-5-2012.pdf

    And, Colorado PERA on the 8 percent PERA return assumption.  Fifty-one minutes into this PERA Shareholder's video Meredith Williams (former PERA Executive Director) provides some interesting information.  He points out that  “The average corporate pension defined benefit plan in the U.S. has an 8.1 percent rate of return assumption.”  This rate of return assumption exceeds that of most public pension plans in the U.S..  Meredith notes that this statistic is not widely known.

    http://www.copera.org/pera/about/shareholder.htm

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