Texas 2019 - 86th Regular

Texas Senate Bill SCR5 Compare Versions

Version 1 (Old)

Version 2 (New)

Old	New		Differences
	1	+	86R4972 KSM-F
1	2		By: Huffman S.C.R. No. 5
2		-	(In the Senate - Filed January 10, 2019; February 7, 2019,
3		-	read first time and referred to Committee on State Affairs;
4		-	March 27, 2019, reported favorably by the following vote: Yeas 9,
5		-	Nays 0; March 27, 2019, sent to printer.)
6		-	Click here to see the committee vote
7	3
8	4
9		-	~~SENATE~~ CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
	5	+	CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
10	6		WHEREAS, Social Security is the foundation for retirement
11	7		income for tens of millions of American workers and their families;
12	8		nearly two-thirds of the older Americans who receive program
13	9		benefits rely on Social Security for 50 percent or more of their
14	10		total income, and one-third rely on it for 90 percent or more; among
15	11		beneficiaries aged 80 and older, 42 percent rely on Social Security
16	12		for nearly all of their income; and
17	13		WHEREAS, Two Social Security provisions, however, the
18	14		Government Pension Offset (GPO), enacted in 1977, and the Windfall
19	15		Elimination Provision (WEP), enacted in 1983, severely and unfairly
20	16		penalize recipients of public pensions; and
21	17		WHEREAS, The GPO effectively prohibits some government
22	18		retirees from collecting both their own pension and full Social
23	19		Security benefits as a surviving spouse; an estimated 9 out of 10
24	20		public employees affected by the GPO lose their entire spousal
25	21		benefit, even though their spouses paid Social Security taxes for
26	22		many years; and
27	23		WHEREAS, The WEP reduces the Social Security benefit for
28	24		public employees who did not participate in Social Security while
29	25		working for the government, but who at some time in their careers
30	26		were in jobs where they paid Social Security taxes for the period
31	27		required to qualify for retirement benefits; the WEP can deprive a
32	28		retiree of nearly $450 a month in Social Security benefits duly
33	29		earned by that individual; and
34	30		WHEREAS, Although these provisions were intended to curtail
35	31		the payment of windfall benefits to highly paid government
36	32		employees, in practice they have had and continue to have
37	33		devastating consequences for low-income employees who worked for
38	34		many years as public servants; more than two million government
39	35		employees and retirees are affected by either the GPO or the WEP or
40	36		both, and the repercussions are felt most acutely in Texas and 14
41	37		other states where a high proportion of public employees
42	38		participate in state or municipal retirement systems that do not
43	39		include Social Security; and
44	40		WHEREAS, These punitive and discriminatory provisions target
45	41		hundreds of thousands of teachers, police officers, firefighters,
46	42		and other public servants; although the vast majority of Texas
47	43		school employees participate in the state's teacher retirement
48	44		system and therefore are not required to and do not participate in
49	45		the Social Security system, many Texas teachers and other public
50	46		school employees nonetheless have earned Social Security benefits
51	47		on their own behalf through other employment, the WEP
52	48		notwithstanding, or would be entitled to spousal Social Security
53	49		benefits based on their spouses' lifetime earnings were it not for
54	50		the GPO penalty; these provisions cause veteran teachers to retire
55	51		prematurely and discourage qualified individuals from entering the
56	52		teaching profession at precisely the time that Texas and the nation
57	53		face a severe shortage of highly qualified educators; and
58	54		WHEREAS, The GPO and WEP as applied to public employees are
59	55		unreasonable and unjust and will cause tens of thousands of
60	56		government retirees to experience a diminished quality of life or
61	57		be forced to return to work to make up for the effects of these
62	58		provisions; now, therefore, be it
63	59		RESOLVED, That the 86th Legislature of the State of Texas
64	60		hereby respectfully urge the Congress of the United States to
65	61		repeal the Government Pension Offset and the Windfall Elimination
66	62		Provision of the Social Security Act; and, be it further
67	63		RESOLVED, That the Texas secretary of state forward official
68	64		copies of this resolution to the president of the United States, to
69	65		the president of the Senate and the speaker of the House of
70	66		Representatives of the United States Congress, and to all the
71	67		members of the Texas delegation to Congress with the request that
72	68		this resolution be officially entered in the Congressional Record
73	69		as a memorial to the Congress of the United States of America.
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