July 01, 2013 02:58 PM UTC

New Coffman® Continues Epic Battle with Old Coffman

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• 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):

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.