Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I rise to speak about the Social Security Fairness Act of 2015, which I am joining my colleague from Ohio in introducing today. This bill would repeal both the windfall elimination provision, WEP, and the government pension offset, GPO. We believe that these two provisions in the Social Security Act unfairly penalize certain individuals for holding jobs in public service when the time comes for them to retire. The WEP affects individuals who have worked in both the private sector and in public sector jobs for which Social Security taxes were not withheld. For such individuals, the WEP applies a special formula to calculate benefits, reducing them compared to what would otherwise be paid. The GPO affects retired public employees whose spouses are entitled to Social Security benefits. When these individuals apply for Social Security spousal or survivor benefits, the GPO applies an offset, reducing the Social Security benefit based on the amount of that individual's public pension. In some cases, the spouse will not be entitled to any spousal or survivor benefit because of the GPO. The WEP and the GPO have enormous financial implications for many of our teachers, police officers, firefighters, postal workers and other public employees. Given their important responsibilities, it is simply unfair to penalize them when it comes to their Social Security benefits. These public servants--or their spouses--have all paid taxes into the Social Security system.…”