National President Holway Attends Hearing “Social Security Fairness Act of 2007” (WEP-GPO)
November 7, 2007
On Tuesday November 6, 2007, National President David Holway attended the hearing on S. 206, the “Social Security Fairness Act of 2007” held before the U.S. Senate Finance Subcommittee on Social Security, Pensions and Family Policy.
The Act calls for a complete repeal of the Government Pension Offset (GPO) and the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) both of which cost individual public employees and their spouses thousands of dollars each year by lowering or eliminating their Social Security benefits.
Senator John Kerry, as Chair of the subcommittee, ran the hearing, and a pre-determined set of witnesses provided oral testimony. Witnesses included Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine), who spoke in favor of the legislation, and a panel of witnesses who were given an opportunity to make statements both in favor of and against the legislation. Witnesses also answered questions posed by Senator Kerry.
Even though Senator Kerry had previously signed on as a co-sponsor of the bill, some of the questions he posed to witnesses gave the appearance that he was looking for alternative ways to tinker with or fix these provisions rather than going forward with a full repeal.
NAGE believes strongly that there is no other solution and that these provisions must be repealed. Tinkering with them won’t change the fact that they will continue to penalize public employees by taking away the benefits they have paid for and earned during their working lives.
We need to stand together and act now to call for a full repeal of the GPO and WEP. Although we will submit written testimony on behalf of the members of SEIU/NAGE Local 5000 in favor of the Social Security Fairness Act, we invite you to take make your individual voice heard.