Political Quotes

“Mr. President, today is a day to celebrate. The Senate is moments away from keeping a promise we made to the American people when Social Security became law. Folks will get the benefits they earned. State and local workers in Louisiana and other States across the country are no different than other Americans who paid into the system. State and local government workers deserve their full Social Security benefit. Now with the passage of the Social Security Fairness Act, they will get it. This act repeals WEP, GPO--that stands for ``windfall elimination provision'' and ``government pension offset''--and stops Social Security from punishing public workers for the crime of serving their communities. Nurses, teachers, firefighters, police officers, widows of those who worked in the Social Security system will be made whole by what we do here tonight. I had a civics teacher in high school who always delighted in the fact that she taught someone who went on to become a Member of Congress, and Betty worked her whole life teaching in public schools. And because of GPO, when her husband passed away--her husband worked at Exxon Refinery, if I remember correctly--her Social Security benefit was cut to a fraction because she had worked in the public sector as a teacher. Under this system, she would have been better in terms of Social Security benefits if she had never worked at all.…”