Bills to eliminate or at least soften both have been introduced in Congress for many years but never have reached floor voting. Image: zimmytws/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek StaffA bipartisan pair of senators has urged that chamber’s Democratic leaders to call to a vote a bill (S-597) to repeal the “windfall elimination provision” and “government pension offset” now that it has enough cosponsors, 62, to assure passage over a potential filibuster.
“It is clear to a bipartisan majority of the United States Senate and our constituents that these provisions are patently unfair and must be repealed,” Sens. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and Susan Collins, R-Maine, wrote.
The National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association said the request “comes at a crucial time” as legislative working time for the year is already drawing short. Congress will be in recess from the end of September until past the elections and would have only several working weeks remaining afterward—time in which numerous budgetary and other bills would have to be resolved in advance of the new Congress and presidential administration taking office in January.
A counterpart bill in the House (HR-82) has 325 House cosponsors, about 100 more than the majority that would be needed there. Several of the primary sponsors have said they plan to use a special legislative maneuver called a discharge petition to force a floor vote even though the bill has not cleared the committee level.
The WEP and GPO apply only under the CSRS system—which now applies to only several percent of current federal employees but about half of current retirees.
The former reduces a Social Security benefit the person earned through other employment—typically before or after a federal career but in some cases during a career through work on the side—if the person had less than 30 years of earnings above a designated level that this year is $31,275. The maximum reduction works out to above $500 a month and is not as severe for those with between 20 and 30 years of such earnings.
The latter reduces Social Security spousal or survivor benefits by $2 for each $3 the beneficiary receives in an annuity from a retirement system that does not include Social Security. In many cases, the effect of the GPO is to eliminate a spousal or survivor Social Security benefit through a spouse’s Social Security-covered employment.
Bills to eliminate or at least soften both have been introduced in Congress for many years but never have reached floor voting—despite in some years also having enough cosponsors to assure passage.
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