Support Social Security Fairness Act for Texas School Employees!

Subject: Eliminate Two Unfair Social Security Pension Offsets!

Dear [ Decision Maker ],

As a citizen and voter, I call on you to take urgent action to eliminate two Social Security pension offsets that unfairly take away fully earned benefits from Texas school employees and other public servants. I specifically ask you to make passage of the Social Security Fairness Act of 2009 (H.R. 235 by Rep. Howard Berman and S. 484 by Sen. Dianne Feinstein) an urgent priority.

The two unjust Social Security provisions, the Government Pension Offset and Windfall Elimination Provision, take billions of dollars of earned benefits out of the pockets of Texas teachers and other school personnel as well as police officers, firefighters, and other public servants nationwide. The GPO takes away some or all of the survivor's benefits duly earned by a public employee's spouse; the WEP takes away up to $372 a month of the Social Security pensions directly earned by public employees themselves.

Compelling testimony in 2007 and 2008 U.S. Senate and House committee hearings has made clear that these offsets put a decent standard of living in retirement out of reach for many public employees. The offsets also hinder recruitment and retention of qualified teachers and other essential education personnel.

The cost of repealing the GPO and WEP could be fully covered by eliminating just a small fraction of the well-documented "tax gap" resulting from failure to enforce current tax laws. There is no justification for entangling the straightforward matter of repealing these unfair offsets with any other Social Security issues.

If you are one of the 21 members of the Texas delegation in Congress already signed up as a cosponsor of the Social Security Fairness Act, I thank you. If you are not, I ask you to join as a cosponsor of this legislation right away to help build momentum for its passage.

Congress should be helping retired public servants, not penalizing them for their dedicated service. The current economic downturn makes retirement security a more urgent concern than ever for those victimized by these unfair offsets. Please let me know specifically what you are doing to achieve the long-overdue elimination of the GPO and WEP.