Begone with the ‘windfall’

I have 29 years of contributions to Social Security, and yet I will not receive my full benefit upon retirement because I’m now a teacher and participate in the Public School Retirement System. This benefit, which is minimal, is considered a windfall and I am penalized.

H.R. 235, the Social Security Fairness Act, is currently pending in the House Committee on Ways and Means. This bill would repeal the Windfall Elimination and Government Pension Offset Provisions.

Teachers, firefighters, police officers and government employees affected by this should contact Charles Rangel and the House Ways and Means Committee members now and urge them to support H.R. 235. Why should we not receive 100 percent of our due, just as those in the private sector? We work for the government in service industries. This is an outrage and an injustice. Go to http://waysandmeans. house.gov/contact.asp

Rep. Emanuel Cleaver and Sen. Claire McCaskill support this repeal.

Sallye Sickman
Kansas City

Comments

[NoMoreMrNiceGuy]

True wind fall is taxation and government confiscatory mandates. The only true culprits are the clowns like Cleaver III and McCaskill. They both are pass the buck poltiicians and do not represent their constituents. I personally have been in regular contact with both of their offices and they are clowns. They just want your vote but do not want to earn it on merit.
These two are yet two of the 534 that need to be canned.

[Kee]

Did Charlie pay his back taxes yet? I know he didn't pay any inerest and penalties like the rest of us would...

[NoMoreMrNiceGuy]

You mean call "I Didn't Know About The Tax Code I Helped Write" Rangel?

I little sympathy for teachers that are unionized and now are getting EXACTLY what they asked for.

I bet Sallye is against vouchers and for higher taxation on property owners.

[Marctnts]

The argument is not quite as simple as Sallye (really?) makes it seem.

First, a few facts. Until the late 1980's, employees who received a government pension weren't required to contribute to Social Security. The laws have since been changed, and those who receive government pensions who contribute to SS for at least 30 years are not subject to the Windfall provisions. Second, the way Social Security works, the system is skewed to provide a higher-level of benefit to lower income workers than their contributions would typically justify. For example, let's say that you worked for 30 years at a fixed income per year. Your benefit upon retirement would NOT be 3X larger than someone who only worked for 10 years at the same income. The benefit for the 10 year contributor would be larger in comparison to the 30 year contributor because the system is designed to "fill the gaps" for the lower lifetime-earning person.

The Windfall Elimination provision was designed to keep those who did not contribute to SS for a portion of their working life and received a government pension from taking advantage of the skewed calculation method of Social Security and getting a larger than entitled SS benefit by appearing to be a lower lifetime-earner based upon SS contributions made before or after government service work. Basically, the worker would appear to be a low wage worker to SS and receive the favorable calculation of SS benefits that low income folks receive. The WEP simply provides an alternate formula for calculating benefits for folks who contributed little to SS but were not low wage earners. They were folks contributing to a public pension system instead.

There's probably some room for reasonable changes to the Windfall provision (though the advent of universal SS contribution in the 1980's will make the restriction moot in another decade or so), but the issue is not as "simple" as the letter writer would lead you to believe.