Rick Perry: Poster boy for Republican hypocrisy

In case you were wondering why Rick Perry was fighting against having to disclose his personal finances as required by the FEC for presidential candidates, this could be a clue:

Perry officially retired in January so he could start collecting his lucrative pension benefits early, but he still gets to collect his salary — and has in turn dramatically boosted his take-home pay.

Perry makes a $150,000 gross salary as Texas govenor. Now, thanks to his early retirement, Perry, 61, gets a monthly retirement annuity of $7,698 before taxes, or $6,588 net. That raises his gross salary to more than $240,000.

Sadly, this early "retirement" doesn't mean he's retired as the governor of Texas. No, he's still keeping that title and the salary. If he manages to serve his whole term, his retirement payments will be raised to reflect his additional years of "service." This is all perfectly legal and at the taxpayers' expense.

As for you hapless little taxpayers, well, Perry has a whole new plan for you.

“I do advocate totally rethinking the safety net, personal security programs completely,” Perry said in a November 2010 interview. “Why is the government collecting your tax money for retirement and health care programs? That’s not a stated constitutional role.”

In his most ambitious policy prescription so far as a presidential candidate, Perry proposed a partial privatization of Social Security for future retirees, changes that would not affect the federal benefits he will receive.

Classic GOP definition of shared sacrifice. We working class losers get to do the sacrificing, while the "producer" class gets to take our share of the national treasury. Which seems only fair -- to them