Two Cheers for Misguided Ethics!

Republican Congressman Bob Ney of Ohio may serve up to 27 months in prison but that will not stop Ney from being able to collect on his Congressional pension, according to a story posted in the Columbus Dispatch.

According to the Dispatch:

Ney, R-Heath, has agreed to plead guilty to federal charges that he accepted free trips, meals and drinks from now-disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, and gambling chips worth thousands of dollars from a Syrian businessman.


To his credit, Ney did support a bill that would have banned pensions for members of Congress that were convicted of felonies relating to their official duties (the bill was not put into law since the House and Senate could not agree on a final version of the bill), he must have only given his support to the bill because he did not figure he would be caught in his wrongdoings.

There have been small strides towards making Congress a more ethical place. However, one may wonder how far such efforts to reform the House will go if the two houses of the Congress cannot even agree on a bill to prohibit people like Bob Ney from receiving their taxpayer-funded pensions.

The only things preventing Ney from receiving his full pension (up to 80% of the salary, how lucrative is that?) is that he cannot begin to collect on his pension until 2010 and he will receive a reduced amount of his pension if he begins to collect before he reaches the age of 62, ten years from now.

Will we see that culture change by November? It looks very doubtful.