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In the AARP BULLETIN / May 2004 the following article appeared.
The “disabled veterans tax.”
“Many disabled veterans see their retirement benefits reduced, on a dollar-for-dollar basis by the VA disability benefits they receive. The Bush administration considers the Retired Pay restoration Act of 2003, which would abolish the “tax,” to be a budget-buster. More than 84 percent of all Capitol Hill lawmakers are co-sponsors of the measure-including Kerry, who says he would “grant full concurrent receipt to disabled veterans.” – Bill Hogan
Why is this article important to the repeal of GPO and WEP effort? Compare these numbers with HR 594 and S 349 and you will fully understand. H.R.303 in the House and S 392 in the Senate are companion bills to repeal the 100% offset of veterans benefits due to service-connected disabilities.
| HR 303 has 379 cosponsors. |
| There is a Discharge Petition with 205 signatures. |
| S 392 has 69 cosponsors. |
Title: To amend title 10, United States Code, to permit
retired members of the Armed Forces who have a service-connected disability to
receive both military retired pay by reason of their years of military service
and disability compensation from the Department of Veterans Affairs for their
disability.
Sponsor: Rep Bilirakis, Michael [FL-9] (introduced 1/8/2003) Cosponsors
(379)
Related Bills:
H.RES.251
Latest Major Action: 2/20/2003 Referred to House subcommittee. Status: Referred
to the Subcommittee on Benefits.
Note: On 6/12/2003, a motion was filed to discharge the Rules Committee from
consideration of
H.Res. 251.
H.Res. 251 provides for the consideration of
H.R. 303. A discharge petition requires 218 signatures for further
action. (Discharge Petition No.
108-2: text with signatures.)
S.392
Title: A bill to amend title 10, United States Code, to permit retired
members of the Armed Forces who have a service-connected disability to receive
both military retired pay by reason of their years of military service and
disability compensation from the Department of Veterans Affairs for their
disability.
Sponsor: Sen Reid, Harry M. [NV] (introduced 2/13/2003) Cosponsors
(69)
Latest Major Action: 2/13/2003 Referred to Senate committee. Status: Read
twice and referred to the Committee on Armed Services.
There are two other pending GPO and WEP bills that might produce positive results. HR 887 introduced by Rep. Jefferson would modify the GPO by exempting the combined Social Security and pension for the first $2,000 each month and HR 2011 introduced by Rep. Frank to modify the WEP by exempting the first $2,000 each month from the combined total of Social Security and pension. Why haven’t we been singing the praise of these two bills? For the past two years we choose to fight for full repeal of both GPO and WEP as proposed by HR 594. Many local and national organizations took the same position because it was at the time, “the right thing to do.” Well, we are still fighting an uphill battle against overwhelming odds trying to repeal both GPO and WEP.
On March 17, 2004 it was reported from the NEA that Rep. Shaw offered what might have been a compromise that was rejected by the NEA staff.
“NEA staff met today with Representatives McKeon (R-CA), Berman (D-CA) - the primary sponsors of legislation to repeal the GPO and WEP - and with Representative Shaw (R-FL), chair of the Social Security Subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee. The Members’ respective staffs also attended the meeting.
“Chairman Shaw put forth several proposals to address the harsh impacts of the Social Security offsets. NEA informed Chairman Shaw that the proposals were unsatisfactory, given the goal of eliminating the GPO and WEP. Chairman Shaw agreed to go back and work on proposals that would be more satisfactory to NEA.”
Now, two month later, on May 19th, Rep. Brady has proposed a new WEP bill, HR 4391. That bill seeks to change the WEP by “Counting ALL earnings, including those from non-covered work… averaging them over the total number of years...applying the same percentage applied to other workers...and reducing the benefit by the percentage of work from non-covered employment.” How in the world does SSA expect to gather earnings data and calculate the benefit correctly? Past experience has shown that many retirees have suffered the pain of overpayment. Under the GPO a retiree reports their cost of living but somehow SSA fails to make the proper adjustment. The result months later the retiree receives a letter advising them how they have been over paid and must then repay the hundreds or thousands to SSA.
Now might be the time to reconsider both Rep. Frank’s WEP bill HR 2011 which exempts the first $2,000 combined SS and pension and Rep. Jefferson bill HR 887 that does the same for those retirees under the GPO.
From Rep. E. Clay Shaw on the new bill
"Some of our country’s finest; police officers, firefighters, teachers, and other public employees face unexpected and unfair reductions in their Social Security benefits when they retire," said Shaw. "This legislation would ensure these public servants and all workers are treated fairly under Social Security."
"This legislation represents a reasonable and fair approach to address a long-standing inequity in the retirement security of our dedicated public employees," said Shaw. "I look forward to working with my colleagues, and those impacted by this legislation, to build support for action." My personal comment if Rep. Shaw speaks his true feelings then why has he allowed the Jefferson, the Frank the McKeon/Berman bills to die in every session of Congress. Some of these bills were introduced starting in March 1997. Rep. Shaw needs to follow the ‘ACTION SPEAKS LOUDER THAN WORDS” motto.
Summary of Public Servant Retirement Protection Act
| Under current law, certain Federal, State, and local government employees and other employees who receive a pension based on work not subject to Social Security taxes, but who gain eligibility for Social Security worker benefits through other employment, have their benefits computed using a modified benefit formula. This modified formula is called the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP). |
| The Public Servants Retirement Protection Act (PSRPA) repeals the WEP. Social Security will no longer be figured by an arbitrary formula, but will be based on each worker’s actual work history so that all workers are treated fairly. |
| Under the legislation, Social Security benefits would be calculated as if all the worker’s earnings were subject to Social Security taxes, using the standard benefit formula. To ensure Social Security benefits are based only on Social Security wages, the benefit would be multiplied by the percent of earnings subject to Social Security taxes. |
| Current retirees and workers who have non-Social Security wages in or before the year following enactment will receive the higher of either their benefit under current law or their benefit calculated under this bill. |
Ken Moore, Offset/Windfall
“We are looking at this proposal and we think for many people it could be
a better benefit and for others it might be worse. We need to make sure the 30-year
exclusion still applies. Will the retiree get the higher of the current calculation
or would this one be used, should it pass? We also wonder where the non-covered earnings
records will come from - probably the numerous public retirement systems.
If they provide this kind of information on their members will there be a privacy issue?”
· The devil is in the details.
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