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.
This 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.
So 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
ReplyDelete