The Daily Astorian published one of America’s biggest dirty little secrets Thursday. Thanks to the Associated Press, you now know a lot more about the exceedingly generous congressional pension and health care benefits.

In a nutshell, retired federal lawmakers have a benefits package unlike anything that benefits any other pool of workers or professionals in America. Only a grossly overpaid chief executive officer of a Fortune 500 company would have a retirement payout as egregiously generous.

Why does this matter?

All of us are paying for this benefits package. Its long-term costs to the U.S. Treasury are considerable.

More significantly, U.S. representatives and senators live in a bubble – in a world apart from ours. Hence, our federal lawmakers repeatedly bungle attempts to deal with health care and Social Security. Representatives and senators have no personal stake in those matters, because their retirement and health care are paid for. Thus, the only voice they really hear is the lobbyist from the pharmaceutical or insurance industry who takes them on a golfing junket and pays their campaign bills. From what we know about the Jack Abramoff scandal, that assertion is not far-fetched.

Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, who spoke Tuesday to the Columbia Forum, is one of the rare nonmillionaires in the Senate. It is no surprise that he has written a tax bill that would restore equity and simplicity to the federal tax code. Most of his colleagues cannot identify with most of us.

The most destructive trend in our national government of the past two decades is the extent to which representatives and senators live apart from the rest of us. The pension system that Associated Press has exposed lies at the heart of that gap.