John Shaw: “Mr. Speaker, I remind Members who are going to vote on this issue who are zeroing in on this one small part of this…”

“Mr. Speaker, I remind Members who are going to vote on this issue who are zeroing in on this one small part of this bill, where we have a two-worker family both paying into Social Security, one dies, the survivor either gets their earned benefit or the survivor benefit, whichever is greater. But in Texas where you have one spouse who has paid nothing into Social Security but paid all into their pension plan, they would receive, if they worked 1 day under the Social Security system, they would receive their full pension and survivor benefits. All we are trying to do is to say if someone works 5 years under Social Security, they can get both. But if they work 1 day, they cannot get both. This is trying to level the playing field for the millions of teachers, firefighters and others across this country who have paid into Social Security, to level the playing field so the people who never paid into Social Security are not getting a better deal. It is as simple as that.”