Action Alert #49 – Where We Go From Here
The fiscal battles in Washington for the last couple of months have been exhausting. Social Security has made it through so far without any benefits cut, but some people will tell you that there is just no money to even consider repealing the GPO and WEP. Not so! We are only talking about less than 5% of retired SS beneficiaries and a cost to repeal that would be less than 2% of the SSA’s retirement benefit expenditures each year. We paid the money, we earned the benefits!
This year we will continue to educate and influence legislators, increase the number of our allied activist groups, support a legal challenge to the GPO and WEP, and, of course, increase our membership base and our Facebook numbers. You can help!
Spread the word “We paid the money, we earned the benefits!”
1. Contact Congress, again! New Members of Congress and Senators need to learn about our issue; old members need to know that we are still out here.
We are working with a major supporter, the California Retired Teachers Association, in making a big push for legislator contact. CalRTA Washington WEPGPO Lobby Day is Wednesday, April 3. If you can’t be in D.C., make a local appointment with your Representative for that week or the last week of March. See link below for more info about the CalRTA initiative: http://calrta.org/2013-wepgpo-lobby-day/
We will publish more about contacting legislators and back this up with a letter-writing campaign. You can always reach them at www.house.gov and www.senate.gov.
2. Contact and inform powerful groups that are already working to make Social Security stronger. Many people in these groups aren’t aware of how unfairly we are treated or have declined to stick up for us. Some think we were able to choose whether or not to pay FICA taxes. Can you contact AARP, Alliance for Retired Americans, Strengthen Social Security, NARFE, NCPSSM, or any other senior activist group? What is your union doing? Eighty percent of those affected by the GPO are women; 75% lose ALL their benefits. This is a women’s issue! Where are AAUW, Delta Kappa Gamma, NOW, National Partnership for Women and Children?
3. Help work toward a legal challenge of GPO/WEP
A legal challenge! An enthusiastic supporter of repeal, Ric Robson, found us online and is working to discover ways that the offsets may be vulnerable to the right legal case. If you like to read legal briefs, have some good ideas or even have a GPO/WEP story that is particularly compelling, contact him at ricrobson@yahoo.com
4. Tell your story to more family and friends.
Show them the explanatory PowerPoints on our website. Ask them to join our Alert list and our Facebook page. Do you know a group of employees who will be affected when they retire? Let them know how badly their retirement will be cut, and then send them to ssfairness.org, so they can work for change.
Thank you for your support and your stories!