An important outside voice in the debate over the provisions, GAO, did not endorse changes in the law but rather recommended better coordination between governmental entities to address the problem of uneven application due to faulty record-keeping. GAO said that repealing the provisions “would be costly in an environment where the Social Security trust funds already face long-term solvency issues,” citing estimates from SSA that eliminating the reductions would cost more than $40 billion for each over 10 years. It also noted that under a separate Social Security provision called the dual entitlement rule that primarily applies to two-earner couples both of whom are under Social Security, spouses may not receive both the benefits earned as a worker and the full spousal benefit–they receive the higher amount of the two. “If the GPO were eliminated or reduced for spouses who had paid little or no Social Security taxes on their lifetime earnings, it might be reasonable to ask whether the same should be done for dually entitled spouses who have paid Social Security on all their earnings. Otherwise, such couples would be worse off than couples who were no longer subject to the GPO. And far more spouses are subject to the dual entitlement offset than to the GPO; as a result, the costs of eliminating the dual entitlement offset would be commensurately greater,” GAO said.