By Berman                                            H.C.R. No. 186
         77R8069 ELG-D                           
                             HOUSE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
 1-1           WHEREAS, Social security is the foundation for retirement
 1-2     income for millions of American workers and their families;
 1-3     two-thirds of older Americans rely on social security for 50
 1-4     percent or more of their total income, and 30 percent rely on it
 1-5     for 90 percent or more; and
 1-6           WHEREAS, The Government Pension Offset (GPO), a social
 1-7     security provision enacted in 1977, harshly and unfairly penalizes
 1-8     recipients of public pensions; and
 1-9           WHEREAS, The GPO has the effect of reducing or, in many
1-10     cases, eliminating the social security benefit for spouses, widows,
1-11     or widowers who also receive a pension based on their own work for
1-12     federal, state, or local government entities not covered by social
1-13     security; and
1-14           WHEREAS, As many as 266,000 low-income and middle-income
1-15     women, for example those who have worked as clerical employees,
1-16     cafeteria workers, bus drivers, and librarians, are affected by the
1-17     GPO; the offset most drastically affects low-income widows, causing
1-18     many to live near, or even below, the poverty level; and
1-19           WHEREAS, This punitive and inequitable provision targets
1-20     hundreds of thousands of teachers, police officers, firefighters,
1-21     and other public servants because it applies only to recipients of
1-22     public pensions; recipients of private-sector pension benefits are
1-23     not subject to the same penalty; and
1-24           WHEREAS, Although the pension offset provision was intended
 2-1     to curtail the payment of windfall benefits to highly paid
 2-2     government employees, it has had and continues to have devastating
 2-3     and unintended consequences for low-income public service
 2-4     employees; the GPO as applied to this group is unreasonable and
 2-5     unjust and will cause tens of thousands of retired government
 2-6     employees to live out their retirement years in poverty; now,
 2-7     therefore, be it
 2-8           RESOLVED, That the 77th Legislature of the State of Texas
 2-9     hereby respectfully urge the Congress of the United States to
2-10     repeal the Government Pension Offset provision of the Social
2-11     Security Act; and, be it further
2-12           RESOLVED, That the Texas secretary of state forward official
2-13     copies of this resolution to the president of the United States, to
2-14     the speaker of the house of representatives and the president of
2-15     the senate of the United States Congress, and to all the members of
2-16     the Texas delegation to the congress with the request that this
2-17     resolution be officially entered in the Congressional Record as a
2-18     memorial to the Congress of the United States of America.