CBO expects that the bill would advance the exhaustion date for the combined trust funds by roughly a half a year. Image: TimeShops/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek StaffRepealing the government pension offset and windfall elimination provisions would benefit those affected by those two Social Security reductions—including current and future federal retirees under the CSRS system—by a total of $196 billion over 10 years, says a cost estimate for Congress.
But that also means passage would increase costs by that much to that already financially troubled system, the Congressional Budget Office said in an estimate whose price tag may complicate the current push to enact that long-standing proposal this year.
The total additional cost to the Social Security system would be $101 billion over a decade for repealing the WEP and $110 billion for repealing the GPO, but because of some offsetting factors, such as a reduction in assistance to low-income persons, the net cost would be $195.7 billion, it said.
With more than 100 cosponsors above the number that would be needed to pass the House, proponents of the bill are using a special procedure to try to bring the measure out of a committee and compel a floor vote. A “discharge petition” filed last week requires the signature of a majority of House members before next steps can be taken; sponsors quickly got more than halfway toward that total.
Similarly, several backers of the Senate version have urged Democratic leaders there to pull that bill out of committee and call a floor vote, noting that it has enough cosponsors to overcome a potential filibuster.
The Social Security trust funds already are projected to be exhausted around 2034 and under current law, after that point Social Security would have to rely only on current payroll taxes to pay benefits, leaving a shortfall projected at about 20 percent of currently promised benefits. The law prevents paying those benefits from other tax revenues or borrowing.
“Based on the estimated effects of the bill through 2034, CBO expects that the bill would advance the exhaustion date for the combined trust funds by roughly a half a year,” it added.
The CBO made those projections regarding the House version of the repeal bill (HR-82), which also would apply to the counterpart Senate version (S-597). It added, as it commonly does in cost estimates, that the figures could be either high or low due to factors such as changes in the numbers of affected persons and inflation adjustments to Social Security in coming years.
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How Do Age and Years of Service Impact My Federal Retirement
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