OCTOBER 2023 WEP AND GPO REPEAL PROGRESS

We aren’t getting what we earned! We paid into Social Security, and we aren’t getting the same amount back as other retirees!

H.R. 82 in the House has 296 co-sponsors, and we are still pushing for more. The bill’s sponsor, Congress Member Garret Graves (R-LA), has said he expects to bring the bill to the floor in December; we want as many co-sponsors as possible. The House has 435 Representatives, and many members are from big states that have large numbers of workers affected by the offsets, so it is easier to get enough House Members to sign on than it is to get Senators.

S. 597 introduced by Senator Sherrod Brown, Ohio, and co-sponsored by Senator Susan Collins, Maine, has 46 co-sponsors. We need 60. Half of the Senators are from states that do not have many retirees affected by the offsets, so it will be challenging to get 60 Senators to sign onto the repeal bill. We have our work cut out for us!

The new Contact page on our ssfairness.org website has a link to the California Retired Teachers Association’s twice-a-week, quick, and easy-to-use email notifications to legislators’ offices to increase our drumbeat for repeal.

There is also a new link to the popular Facebook (META) page ”National WEP & GPO Repeal Movement.” with current actions, discussions, and links to more information. 

Maintaining an email list and website costs about $2,000 a year, and we are very grateful to those of you who have helped us by making tax-deductible donations to our non-profit organization, Social Security Fairness. If you click on the “Donate” link on our homepage or send a check to “Social Security Fairness” P.O. Box 7486, Berkeley, CA, 94707, in any amount helps to keep us going. We appreciate your support!

On September 13, in the heat of Washington, D.C, the National WEP/GPO Repeal Task Force members participated in a press conference hosted by Rep. Garret Graves and Rep. Abigail Spanberger in support of their bill, H.R. 82, to completely repeal the WEP and GPO offsets. Here is a link to the YouTube recording of that event:

The afternoon of September 13th, the Task Force organized a powerful summit meeting of many of the most influential organizations fighting for repeal. Here is a link to this later presentation. So good to see all the organizations standing up for us! Enjoy! (BTW, Mr. Richtman soon recovered from the afternoon heat).

https://www.youtube.com/live/rZLW2JgR3iA?si=svkgqN0L2nr5fmpX&t=119
(Please click for the full video.)

If you missed the talks from Spanberger and Graves, you can catch up with it here too. We featured this video on our Alert PRESS CONFERENCE ON WEP/GPO REPEAL (ssfairness.org).

Here is the list of speakers. An impressive list. Tell them thanks!

Teachers Organizations

Police and Fire Fighters

U.S. Government Workers

Pro-Senior Organizations