Bill Archer: “Madam Speaker, today is a great day for hundreds of thousands of working seniors across this country. It is also a…”

“Madam Speaker, today is a great day for hundreds of thousands of working seniors across this country. It is also a special day for me personally, because it is a culmination of my 27-year effort to repeal the earnings limit. In fact, I introduced a bill to do so in 1973, and we have taken out of the archives a copy of that bill, H.R. 10148. The reason to repeal the earnings penalty then was the same as it is today, it is simply wrong. Twenty-seven years is a long time to wait for me. But I am more thrilled that working seniors will not have to wait any longer to be free from this punishing tax. The Social Security earnings limit is not only wrong, it is unfair, and it is backwards. The earnings penalty actually cuts Social Security benefits from many working seniors over the age of 65 and gives them the highest effective tax rate of their entire lives at a time when senior citizens should be realizing lower taxes. It discourages them from working. And why in the world would we want to discourage any American, whether they are 16 or 67, from working? Clearly, repealing this penalty is the right thing to do.”