Action Alert #45 – Vote Like Your Pension Depends on It!

It is expected that the new Congress will be making changes this spring to put Social Security in a position to pay full benefits after 2033, when the “Trust Fund” will run out and benefit payments could be lowered to 75% of what workers were expecting.

Is the person you are voting for on record to strengthen Social Security without cutting hard-earned benefits? If part of FICA taxes go into private investment accounts, there will be less money to pay for the REPEAL of the GPO/WEP.

Many of our government agency pension funds took huge losses when the market crashed in 2008 because their financial managers invested in improperly rated investments. The Dodd-Frank financial reform bill demands greater clarity for investors.

Do the people you are voting for support Dodd-Frank and more transparency on Wall Street?

Your pension depends on it!

Check to see if your members of the House and Senate supported our Social Security Fairness bills this year:

For the House Members:

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/112/hr1332

For the Senate:

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/112/s2010

Thank you!

Here is a story from one of our new members—you are not alone!

I worked and paid my 40 quarters into Social Security. When my Air Force husband was transferred to Louisiana, I resumed my teaching career. No one mentioned that I would lose Social Security benefits if I continued teaching in Louisiana. Upon nearing retirement, I learned that the government would steal from me the money I had paid into the program.

Even worse than losing my own Social Security, the government will not allow me to collect my husband’s benefits should he predecease me. After serving in the U.S. military for 22 years and paying into Social Security all of his adult life, he learns that is wife cannot benefit from his service to his country. And, by the way, as an Air Force wife, I feel I have served my country as well. How can this action possibly be constitutional?

I’m not asking for anything more than what my husband and I have earned. I don’t expect to receive compensation for the years I did not pay into they system. But, I do deserve to collect what I have contributed. If nothing else, I should be refunded the money I have contributed with interest.

I find this law completely and totally un-American. The unfairness doesn’t just anger me, it breaks my heart. I never dreamed my government would treat my family with such disrespect.