78R1690 EAM-D

By:  Berman                                                     H.C.R. No. 17 



CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
	WHEREAS, Social security is the foundation for retirement 
income for millions of American workers and their families; 
two-thirds of older Americans rely on social security for 50 
percent or more of their total income, 30 percent rely on it for 90 
percent or more, and for 20 percent it is their only source of 
income; and
	WHEREAS, The Government Pension Offset (GPO), a social 
security provision enacted in 1977, severely and unfairly penalizes 
recipients of public pensions; and
	WHEREAS, The GPO has the effect of eliminating or reducing 
the social security benefit for spouses, widows, or widowers who 
also receive a pension based on their own work for federal, state, 
or local government entities not covered by social security; an 
estimated 9 out of 10 public employees affected by the GPO lose 
their entire spousal benefit, even though their deceased spouse 
paid social security taxes for many years; and
	WHEREAS, As many as 305,000 low-income and middle-income 
retirees, for example those who have worked as clerical employees, 
cafeteria workers, bus drivers, and librarians, are affected by the 
GPO; the offset has the harshest impact on low-income widows, 
causing many to live near, or even below, the poverty level; and
	WHEREAS, This punitive and discriminatory provision targets 
hundreds of thousands of teachers, police officers, firefighters, 
and other public servants because it applies only to recipients of 
public pensions; recipients of private-sector pension benefits are 
not subject to the same penalty; and
	WHEREAS, Although the pension offset provision was intended 
to curtail the payment of windfall benefits to highly paid 
government employees, in practice it has had and continues to have 
devastating consequences for low-income employees who worked for 
many years as public servants; the GPO as applied to this group is 
unreasonable and unjust and will cause tens of thousands of retired 
government employees to live out their retirement years in poverty 
or be forced to return to work to make up for the effects of the GPO; 
now, therefore, be it
	RESOLVED, That the 78th Legislature of the State of Texas 
hereby respectfully urge the Congress of the United States to 
repeal the Government Pension Offset provision of the Social 
Security Act; and, be it further
	RESOLVED, That the Texas secretary of state forward official 
copies of this resolution to the president of the United States, to 
the speaker of the house of representatives and the president of the 
senate of the United States Congress, and to all the members of the 
Texas delegation to the congress with the request that this 
resolution be officially entered in the Congressional Record as a 
memorial to the Congress of the United States of America.