From The Hill:
A group of House Republicans is making a rare move that would force a vote on a bill to reform aspects of Social Security, stirring unrest in the conference.
The bill at the heart of the push, also dubbed the Social Security Fairness Act, seeks to do away with the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and the Government Pension Offset (GPO), a proposal that backers on both sides of the aisle argue is long overdue.
The bill enjoys support from more than 100 House Republicans, and almost four dozen have cosigned the effort to use what’s known as a discharge petition to force consideration of the bill — and the strategy is rubbing some in the conference the wrong way.
“In a well-run Congress, no legislator signs a discharge petition if you’re a majority. That is a rule that is never broken,” Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wis.) told The Hill. “And the fact that 47 of my colleagues signed a discharge petition shows that we have an utter lack of discipline.” ...
Republicans say the matter was a topic of debate in a conference meeting earlier this week. ...
Regardless of the House vote, it's very unlikely that this legislation will be voted on in the Senate.
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lol I love the irony that this bill is called "Social Security Fairness Act" when enacting it would be the exact opposite. As it sits, WEP and GPO are much for fair in their current iterations than doing away with both.
ReplyDeleteI heard the bill was called putting lipstick on a pig. Why is eliminating GPO and WEP such a priority?
DeleteIt’s an election year and Donny is losing in the polls. Republicans want to push this and then they can scream “see we love social security so much!” to get those sweet sweet retiree votes when the show up to the polls.
DeleteI do find it funny that we see a bit of actual democracy, people across the country banding together to have their opinions on something that affects them get heard and are proposing solutions. You don't get so many sponsors with a single lobbying entity, these legislators have been approached by constituents with a grievance. Fair play to them for getting the ear of so many legislators and trying to get their "day in court". Most of us just bitch about things we don't like, these folks run the gamut, have sufficient numbers and geographic dispersion and did something. Again, I say fair play to them for engaging and working our legislative and political system to get their grievance addressed.
ReplyDeleteNice soliloquy but it’s DOA in the Senate. Couldn’t Congress address more important issues?
DeleteOf course getting rid of the WEP and GPO is the only fair thing to do. I understand all the goals of trying to remove the "low earner's benefit" from people who have alternate pensions, but the bottom line is that SSA insurance is NOT a means tested program. If it is then you should test ALL means for ALL people and then reduce benefits for people with all types of other income and not just past government workers with other pension income. Why is some government worker's SSA benefits reduced because he has some other pension, and not reduce someone else who has an inherited trust fund issuing them monthly benefits. Taking away SSA benefits, they would otherwise get, from someone because they have a pension is biased and unfair.
ReplyDeleteThe WEP and GPO are fair. To say otherwise proves you do not know anything about how Social Security benefits are calculated and know nothing about the offsets.
Delete“ Why is some government worker's SSA benefits reduced because he has some other pension, and not reduce someone else who has an inherited trust fund issuing them monthly benefits.”
DeleteBecause one of those things is unearned income (which no one pays FICA on) and the government worker didn’t pay FICA on their earned income while earning that pension, like everyone else does. This isn’t really a hard concept to grasp.
10:32 Again, you do not understand. The SSA earnings record does not show noncovered earnings. So the calculations treat the covered earnings as the individuals only earnings. Their SS Retirement benefit is therefore based on the fiction that they were lifetime low wage earners which results in a higher SS benefit, a greater portion of their contributions. The offset puts these folks on the same footing as every other wage earner.
DeleteThis country is 35 trillion dollars in debt but what’s 190 billion amongst friends.
ReplyDeleteCritics say the bill is expensive, pointing to scoring from the Congressional Budget Office from earlier this month that estimates the measure could cost upward of $190 billion over a decade.
Yeah, I don’t want to hear that from the same idiots who decided we had trillions to spare on tax cuts for Elon Musk and his ilk. Pull your head out of your rear end
DeleteSo constituents and citizens should just consider whether they are tilting at windmills and not exercise their rights? And don't we want our congressmen and women to act on our behalf? Written like a "policy wonk" instead of just a plain old folk, you get to decide what is more important, not them. Right
ReplyDeleteI think you can take Grothman's statement to presume that his colleagues have been thoroughly chastised by (and with) the Red Caucus House Whip and that this will never, ever be allowed to happen again.
ReplyDeleteLong past time to fix the unfair GPO.
ReplyDeleteGovernment Pension Offset was created in 1977 to patch social security by harming government employees and their survivors by significantly reducing part or all of their earned social security benefit because of their earned government pension. No SSA offset was made because of union or other pensions or retirement plans.
Social Security is not a needs-based program, but attacking government employees was an easy sell in 1977 under President Jimmy Carter.
Now, after more than 46 years, the Social Security Fairness Act bill already has 327 co-sponsors in the House and 62 co-sponsors in the Senate, meaning it could be the rare bipartisan-supported bill to actually become reality even amidst growing political divisiveness.
Or are those wanting to continue GPO planning to act after all those affected by GPO die?
@233 GPO doesn't harm anyone that has paid into Social Security. Spouses and survivor benefits are paid and the amounts determined based on whether the spouse or survivor worked or not. If they worked under SSA and their benefit is higher there is no SSA spouse or survivor benefit paid. GPO just doesn't unfairly award these types of benefits to people who didn't work under SSA but worked for the government or similar entities and didn't pay into SSA.
Delete2:33 Just another special interest. The GPO is fair and proper public policy. Read and learn something. https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF10203
DeleteTo @ 2:33 – GPO offset does harm those who have earned and are eligible for a social security benefit, otherwise no offset would apply because there is nothing to offset. Money is taken away from a benefit earned and payable at the time of retirement or disability because of work for wages and/or self-employment.
ReplyDeleteYou earned something, then government takes part of it away from you but not from others by inventing some rules to harm a specific group of workers without political power.
If the basic concept of taking away earned social security benefits is OK depending on other retirement or disability income earned and payable from other work or self-employment, that concept must apply as well to offset social security benefits because of union pensions and pensions paid by a business or corporation under plans that determine eligibility and payment amounts.
Next, government can follow that concept to offset social security by reducing it because of money received from an individual IRA or Roth account because those accounts were funded by an individual’s wages and/or self-employment.
The essence of what was done with GPO in 1977 was to create a means-type test for some receiving an earned social security benefit. Since it harmed government workers, a minority group of wage earners in the USA, it was applauded. Had it also included or was only set up to apply to union pension offset, it would never have passed, much less be considered.
As it will work out, the passage of time will erase the need for GPO because those affected by GPO have all died.
We should not have to wait that long to fix something that should never have existed.
Much the same as with Prouty benefits. Prouty benefits are a special monthly benefit paid to certain persons who reached age 72 before 1968 who are not insured for regular monthly benefits. Those once eligible for that special class of social security benefits have all died.
"The essence of what was done with GPO in 1977 was to create a means-type test for some receiving an earned social security benefit."
DeleteLol no it is not. Stop with this nonsense. Regular Social Security survivors get a 1:1 offset, they don't get their own RIB AND the full amount of the survivors rate. Neither should GPO pensioners. In fact, GPO pensioners have it BETTER than regular Social Security recipients, because GPO is only a 2/3 offset, not a full 1:1. If anything, GPO should be become a 1:1 offset as well.