Sylvester Turner: “not too many months ago I had a teacher in my office in East Texas in the city of Lufkin, sitting across the desk…”

“not too many months ago I had a teacher in my office in East Texas in the city of Lufkin, sitting across the desk, crying because she had learned she would not receive any of her husband's Social Security survivor benefit because she had been employed for her entire career as a teacher. The issue before us is not a discussion on loopholes, it is whether the government pension offset is fair. Why should teachers, firefighters, law enforcement people, be denied their survivor benefits under Social Security simply because they have a government retirement benefit? The truth of the matter is if the lady sitting across the desk from me had worked for any other private company and had received a retirement benefit from them, she would still be eligible for her husband's survivor benefit. So I would invite the distinguished chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, who suggested that the Green amendment slows the pressure to change the government pension offset, to merely join with us in trying to amend this legislation; or, in the alternative, to join with the 172 other Members of this House in cosponsoring legislation, H.R. 594, that eliminates this unfair government pension offset.”