Garret Graves presses for hearing to repeal Social Security penalty for teachers, police

Republican Congressman Garret Graves is pressing for a hearing on his bill to eliminate the Social Security penalty for government retirees like teachers and firefighters with a formal request signed by 100 other members including fellow Louisiana U.S. Reps. Troy Carter, Clay Higgins and Julia Letlow.

"This penalty has been an issue for four decades, and we are in the strongest position yet to secure a fix," Graves and Virginia Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger said in their letter to House Ways and Means Committee leadership. "A hearing is an important step in ultimately getting this legislation moving and problem solved."

The 1980s-era Windfall Elimination Penalty (WEP) and Government Pension Offset (GPO) prevent government retirees like police, teachers, firefighters, state workers and their spouses who earned pensions from those careers from collecting their full Social Security benefits earned while working outside of government.

Graves and Spanberger seek to repeal WEP and GPO with House Resolution 82, which sponsors call the Social Security Fairness Act.

“What we’re working on right now is about righting a wrong, addressing an injustice that has been around since the late 1970s and early 1980s," Graves, whose 6th Congressional District includes Baton Rouge and the bayou region, said recently.

Repealing WEP and GPO would increase Social Security benefits for more than 2 million Americans, including thousands in Louisiana.

Earlier this fall, Letlow testified this week in favor of Graves' and Spanberger's bill during a House Ways and Means Committee hearing.

"I'm doing everything we possibly can to get HR 82 across finish line," Letlow said on a video she posted on X, formerly Twitter, where she called the current rules unjust.

Letlow, who represents the 5th Congressional District with Monroe and Alexandria as the population hubs, has said Louisiana would get the seventh greatest benefit among states if the current law was repealed.

She said her office received 3,000 constituent calls during her first year in Congress asking her to support changing the law, the most concerning any issue.

Graves said the issue consistently ranks at the top of his constituents' concerns. He said the bill had 298 co-sponsors as of last week.

Supporters of the bill thought they had secured enough support last summer to forcer a vote on the House floor, but blamed a procedural maneuver from former Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi for stalling the vote in Ways and Means.

Graves and Spanberger were forced to start from scratch in the new Congress and reintroduced the bill in February.

Opponents of the effort to remove WEP and GPO restrictions argue that repealing the current law will increase the strain already placed on Social Security and its future viability.

The Social Security Board of Trustees has said Social Security will become insolvent in in 2035.

"We're penalizing people who go into public service," Graves said. "This is wrong and unjust. It just doesn't make sense."

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Greg Hilburn covers state politics for the USA TODAY Network of Louisiana. Follow him on Twitter @GregHilburn1.

This article originally appeared on Shreveport Times: Could Congress repeal Social Security penalty for teachers, police?