Options Dwindling for Passing Social Security Fairness Act

“We’d like to bring it to the floor,” Cassidy said Tuesday.

Given the timing, however, there are likely just two ways for that to happen.

One is for Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York, who is co-sponsoring a Senate bill that does the same thing, to invoke a Senate rule that would skip a committee hearing, where the legislation may stall, and send the bill directly to a floor vote by the full Senate.

The other is for the four top House and Senate leaders to attach the legislation to another bill that must pass both chambers before the end of the year.

Cassidy noted that three of the four leaders, known as “the four corners,” have co-sponsored the legislation.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Benton, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jefferies, D-New York, and Schumer have all signed on as co-sponsors. The fourth, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, has not.

“Of the four corners, three of them are covered. So, if Schumer brings it up, it’ll pass,” Cassidy said.

The Senate version of the bill has 61 co-sponsors, enough to approve the House-passed legislation in the 100-seat Senate and send it to President Joe Biden to sign into law.

Cassidy has castigated Schumer for focusing on confirming the remaining vetted nominees for federal judgeships during the remaining days instead of getting the Social Security Fairness Act passed. President-elect Donald Trump has asked Republican senators not to confirm Biden’s judicial nominations in hopes he can fill those vacancies next year with his own.

Cassidy has been trying to negate the two Social Security provisions since joining Congress in 2009. He has spoken repeatedly on the Senate floor about it, including a speech Monday night.

“Social Security is a sacred trust between generations,” Cassidy said. “When my police officers, firefighters and teachers in Louisiana have second jobs, second careers, or get married, they are unfairly punished. They receive less from Social Security than if they had never worked in public service at all. That’s not right.”

The House in November voted 327 to 75 to approve act, HR 82, by U.S. Rep. Garret Graves, R-Baton Rouge, and Rep. Abigail Spanberger, D-Virginia.

Graves favors a straight-up vote in the Senate on the House-passed legislation, fearing that attempts to attach HR 82 to another bill may end up watering it down or dooming it altogether.

Senate and House leaders have not yet come to an agreement on how to handle appropriations for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1. That is the legislation to which the Social Security bill would likely get attached.

Some in Congress have raised concerns about the costs of the proposed Social Security changes, which is a key reason why nothing has been done about the issue for the past 40 years.

The two provisions were added in 1983 to help shore up Social Security’s finances by limiting benefits for employees who are collecting pensions from state or local systems that didn’t withdraw Social Security taxes. When employees like police officers, firefighters and teachers took second jobs or began new careers, those employers usually paid Social Security taxes but are currently barred from collecting much or all of what they would otherwise be entitled to.

The Windfall Elimination Provision reduces Social Security benefits by up to half the pension amount for people receiving pension income from jobs that didn’t contribute Social Security payroll taxes.

The Government Pension Offset reduces benefits for survivors if the spouse had a pension that wasn’t taxed for Social Security. The Social Security benefits can be cut by up to two-thirds of the public employee’s pension.

But removing the two provisions would cost about $196 billion over the next decade. The money comes from the fund that pays Social Security benefits for everyone.

The fund is expected to become insolvent in about nine years, and the additional payouts would hasten that insolvency by about six months.

When that happens, all Social Security recipients—including those whose employers paid into the program throughout their careers—will see their benefits reduced 20% to 25%.

Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, said in a statement: “These provisions aren’t perfect, and there are lots of ideas to reform them. But repealing them altogether would move in exactly the wrong direction.”

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