The House of Representatives passed a bill that would get rid of the Government Pension Offset (GPO) and the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP). Now it’s up to the Senate to vote on the provisions. The Social Security Fairness Act, the name of the approved bill, is meant to make sure that people who have worked in the public sector and also worked in the private sector and paid into Social Security will not have their payments cut.
Rep. Garret Graves (R-La.), who helped write the bill, said it was very important that it be passed quickly: “There’s been some talk about trying to make it part of the end-of-the-year negotiation.” I believe that is a serious attempt to end it. Since the bill passed with almost 300 votes in the House and could pass on its own, he is worried about the possible delay. “Anything else is really putting us on a slow path toward death, and I think it’s on purpose,” he said.
A letter was sent to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) by Rep. Graves, Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.), Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), and Susan Collins (R-Maine) to try to get them to look at the bill and help it get passed. “This is the first time in history that you have the chance to finish this bill.” To speak for the nearly 2.5 million retirees in every state across the country who are affected by WEP and GPO, we ask you to put the Social Security Fairness Act (H.R.82) to a vote in the U.S. Senate.
There is a lot of disagreement about the Social Security Fairness Act
Many people on both ends of the political spectrum support it, which isn’t a surprise since Social Security is one of the few issues that gets support from both parties. However, many Republican lawmakers are unhappy with how it was handled in the House.
Lawmakers used a discharge petition, which lets members go around leadership to force legislation to be looked at, to get it passed. This kind of measure doesn’t usually pass because it’s only used by people in the minority party and needs support from people in the ruling party, which doesn’t happen very often with these kinds of bills.
Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wis.) said he didn’t like the bill, but he didn’t say anything bad about it: “In a well-run Congress, no legislator signs a discharge petition if you’re a majority.” People never break that rule. And the fact that 47 of my coworkers signed a petition for me to be fired shows that we have no control at all.
Other experts, like Andrew Biggs, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, were also not sure if the bill would work or if it would come at the right time. “[The WEP and the GPO] were made when the government didn’t have access to as much data as it does now, so they had to make these simple rules to get things done.” On the whole, it’s about right, which means that people are being treated more or less properly. That being said, it doesn’t always work fairly. The law of averages says that if some people are being treated badly, then other people are getting a better deal than they should be. To fix that, you need to fix the system, not get rid of all the rules.
To review, the WEP is a method used to change Social Security worker benefits for people who get “non-covered pensions” but are still eligible for benefits because they have earned other Social Security-covered wages. A non-covered pension is one that is paid by a company that does not take Social Security taxes out of your pay. This usually means that the company is not in the United States or is a state or local government. The GPO also means that wives who get government pensions will get less money.
