The bipartisan effort to advance House legislation that would repeal a pair of controversial tax rules that negatively impact some federal workers’ retirement income took another step forward last week as the bill’s sponsors compiled the 218 signatures needed to force a House vote on the measure.
It took Reps. Abigail Spanberger, D-Va., and Garret Graves, R-La., less than two weeks to compile the requisite signatures to require House Speaker Mike Johnson to schedule a vote on the Social Security Fairness Act (H.R. 82), a measure aimed at eliminating Social Security’s windfall elimination provision and government pension offset. Prior to launching the discharge petition drive, the bill already had more than 300 cosponsors.
The windfall elimination provision reduces the Social Security benefits of retired employees who spent a portion of their careers in the private sector in addition to a federal, state or local government position where Social Security is not intended as an element of their retirement income, such as the Civil Service Retirement System. And the government pension offset reduces spousal and survivor Social Security benefits in families with retired government workers.