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Floor Speech

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Mr. CASSIDY. Madam President, Social Security is a sacred trust between the American people and our government. It is a promise to workers, many of whom have no other savings besides Social Security. A promise, almost by definition, does not change. It remains consistent despite new challenges. It is just a question of whether society has the courage to honor that commitment.

Now Social Security as we know it is headed for a fiscal cliff in 9 years. If it hits that cliff, if we do nothing and we just attempt to borrow our way out of it, there will be an estimated $615 trillion in accumulated debt over the next 75 years--again, if we just attempt to borrow our way out of it. If we don't borrow our way out of it, there is a 20- to 24-percent cut in benefits to Social Security recipients, both current and future. This is the rock and the hard place: either the 20-percent or so cut or, with borrowing costs, a $615 trillion addition to our Nation's deficit.

I have spoken before on Social Security. Today, I want to focus on two unfair provisions that we would eliminate if we actually have a chance to address Social Security, the larger picture. The two I will speak of are the windfall elimination provision and the government pension offset, also known as WEP and GPO. These penalize families across the country who worked in a State or a local public service job for part of their career and had a pension separate from Social Security.

How did we get here? WEP and GPO were introduced by President Clinton and Speaker Gingrich decades ago to address perceived inequalities in the Social Security system, but it had the effect actually of creating inequalities. When someone, say, worked for the State of Louisiana or the State of California, and then they didn't pay into the Social Security system, but they left that job after 20 years and went into the private sector, and they worked for 20 years paying into the Social Security system, getting their quotas, here, they were unfairly penalized, overly penalized for the years in which they did not contribute into Social Security.

What the windfall elimination provision does is it reduces the Social Security benefit of individuals who also receive a pension from non- Social-Security-covered employment--for example, State or local government. This has resulted in thousands of individuals who have paid into Social Security during their career but nonetheless received an overly reduced Social Security benefit when they retired.

This is WEP. Now let's talk about the government pension offset. The GPO reduces Social Security spousal or survivor benefits for individuals who also receive a government pension. This provision can reduce or even eliminate Social Security benefits that a spouse or a widow might have expected and relied upon.

Louisiana has more first responders per capita than any other State in the Nation and tens of thousands of teachers, meaning that our State is disproportionately affected by WEP and GPO.

A few years ago, I met a retired Louisiana schoolteacher impacted by GPO--again, government pension offset. She had been a teacher. Her husband had paid into Social Security. She should have gotten the spousal benefit from Social Security, but it was remarkably reduced. She cried in my office. She was unable to understand why she was getting less in Social Security spousal benefits than if she had never worked at all. Think about that. If she had never taught, she would have gotten more benefits than the fact that she did teach and was subject to this government pension offset. She felt that she was punished for being a teacher, educating generations of Louisiana children. Indeed, she was, and she is.

There is no excuse to treat public servants this way. WEP and GPO should never have become laws, but we have an opportunity to fix them.

With President Biden stepping aside in the Presidential race, he has the opportunity to show Presidential leadership--the Presidential leadership he failed to demonstrate until now--on the issue of Social Security. If he is going to serve as President for several more months, why not support a bipartisan plan to save Social Security, to hold true to the promise to our seniors, as well as to make the system fair, with one of his last acts in office. The American people deserve a President willing to work for them. Here is an opportunity.

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