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Support Social Security Fairness for Texas School Employees!
Ask your U.S. senators and representative to repeal two unjust Social Security provisions that harm thousands of Texas public school employees.
For those of you who participated in a Social Security Fairness Act letter campaign previously, you can participate again with a new letter! (Dated November 12, 2008)
| Sample Letter for Campaign |
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 an urgent priority, either in a post-election session of the current Congress concerning an additional economic-stimulus package or when the new Congress convenes in January 2009.
These 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 $355 a month of the Social Security pensions directly EARNED by public employees themselves.
As testimony in recent House and Senate committee hearings has made clear, these offsets put a decent standard of living in retirement out of reach for many public employees. They also serve as a perverse disincentive to the 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. Furthermore, there is no justification for entangling the straightforward matter of repealing these unfair offsets with any other Social Security issues.
Congress should be helping retired public servants, not penalizing them for their dedicated service. Please let me know specifically what you are doing on an urgent basis to achieve the long-overdue elimination of the GPO and WEP.
Sincerely,
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