Posted on 12/21/2024 3:12:44 AM PST by dennisw
The U.S. Congress early on Saturday passed a measure to boost Social Security retirement payments to some retirees who draw public pensions - such as former police and firefighters - which critics warned will further weaken the program's finances.
The Senate in a 76-20 bipartisan vote shortly after midnight approved the Social Security Fairness Act, which would repeal two-decades-old provisions that can reduce benefits for people who also receive a pension.
The House of Representatives last month approved the bill in a 327-75 vote, which means that Senate approval sends it to Democratic President Joe Biden to sign into law. The White House did not immediately respond to a question about whether Biden intended to do so.
The bill will overturn a decades-old change to the program that had been made to limit federal benefits to some higher-earning workers with pensions. Over time, growing numbers of municipal employees such as firefighters and postal workers also saw their payments capped.
Most Americans do not participate in pension plans, which pay a defined benefit, and instead are dependent on what money they can save and Social Security. Just one in ten U.S. private sector workers have pension plans, according to Labor Department data.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
Law that capped what public sector workers can draw from SS existed 20 years. What was the justification?
Justification.
Now “conservatives” are using that word as much as liberals and that is concerning.
IF the budget is ever to be balanced, some or many are going to see injustice in the decisions.
Tough.
SS, Medicare, federal payouts by the Many Billions that goes to emergency responders and their families. The military families get no 10s of billions when their loved ones are hurt or killed in the line of duty.
The defense budget is insanely big with no cuts and it just keeps growing....meanwhile the military can’t account for 5 trillion dollars!!!!
It all needs to end.
If some suffer...the poor, the middle class, the rich..so be it
Yeah I noticed the MSM has been uncharacteristically church mouse like,about the fact that it’s mostly government workers who are getting a raise.
I would feel comfortable with cutting out those that have done for themselves like pensions, but they paid into the system and they should have the privilege of recieving that which was taken away from them during their working years. That’s what that money was earmarked for, themselves. Make it optional. Have a person make a decision between a pension or SS and then follow through. If they choose pension, don’t take it away.
Since SS was never designed for more than a supplement to after working years income, then put the decision of the money they earned that is being with held in their scope. The problem here is that as SS runs short because of mis-spending by the feds, the people who actually are supposed to have the money are being shorted. So let’s put the blame where it belongs.
wy69
Double Dipping in Social Security and Government Pensions
The public sector unions systematically misinform their members, many of whom devoutly believe what seems to be in their personal financial interest. They buy the line that they are being cheated. This is not true. But the unions love at the public trough.
Oh, while we're at it ... let's get rid of the cap on the deductibility of state and local taxes on the federal form, because public sector unions think people in low tax states should subsidize California, Illinois, New York, Massachusetts, etc.
*The unions love double dipping at the public trough.
The logic was that those who are on government payrolls, with padded, slam dunk secured pensions. Unlike the private sector. That these public sector employees should not receive even more Government excess, via Social Security.
Plus 99% of public sector pensions have cost of living escalators. While private sector workers are forced to scrounge, during their retirement years.
‘The unions love double dipping at the public trough”
Skilled moochers are triple dipping. The classic double dip is state/county police retiring after 20 years. Then scoring a fat Federale job in law enforcement. Such as the ATF.
The public sector is a huge club and mafia. And you’re not in it.
“ Oh, while we’re at it ... let’s get rid of the cap on the deductibility of state and local taxes on the federal form, because public sector unions think people in low tax states should subsidize California, Illinois, New York, Massachusetts, etc.”
***********************************************************
Sadly, I suspect that will happen. Trump has made statements about removing the cap. Originally Trump’s tax reform plan aimed to ENTIRELY ELIMINATE deductibility of State and Local taxes (SALT) but due to “horse trading” in Congress they ended up merely capping them. I wish they had entirely eliminated them as it’s unfortunately easier to raise a cap than to establish an entirely new deduction. And SALT DEDUCTIONS ARE SUBSIDIES TO THE HIGH TAX STATES.
Lots of loaded language and falsehoods here. Say someone earns a state or local pension, and did not pay into SS during that time. Then afterwards, they also earn their 40 quarters of SS. The earnings of those quarters assign them a monthly SS value. The government currently steals about half of that. If that same person earned the same 40 quarters, but without another pension, they would get the full amount of SS.
This law merely allows someone to get whatever SS their contributions earned regardless of other work they did in their life.
That is why it passed with giant margins.
Endless hundreds of billions for Ukraine, Afghanistan, Gaza, mass immigration etc. but God forbid retirees get the exact SS their contributions earned them.
And of course, while they were cheating retirees out of half, illegal aliens were getting full ride disability without paying a day into social security.
They contributed into SS with the Government money they earned. And since public sector workers earn more than private sector workers, for comparable jobs, they are/were covered for what they paid into Social Security.
The Feudal Reserve will have to conjure up more fiat dollars, to pay for their new, SS payout increases.
Re: 5 - Hopefully Musk has a talk with J.D. Vance - he voted to move this legislation along.
...or cut something NOW large enough to remove the necessity to raise the debt limit, which is the only card the Ds will have in '25 and neuters them defenseless and Trump free to go.
Interest on the debt (about 1T by itself, iirc) and the need to rebuild the military will make it difficult, however.
Thanks for posting that link. It explains the rationale for having the provisions that are now being deleted. I live in Maryland where you couldn’t spit tobacco juice to the ground without it landing on the shoe of a government “worker” or government retiree. Having a rational discussion with these people on this new legislation engenders only hostility so I now avoid the conversation with them.
The few articles I’ve read on this say that affected government retirees will “only” benefit by a couple of hundred dollars a month. But many will benefit by potentially thousands of dollars a month. Affected government retirees who are widows/widowers can go from having their potential Social Security widows’ benefits entirely or largely offset to getting 100% of those benefits without offset. That wouldn’t be the case if they were private sector retirees receiving Social Security. SEE BELOW LINK for clearer explanation.
https://littleknownfacts.substack.com/p/how-public-employees-can-double-dip
The next sound we hear may be the affected retired government employees complaining about how slowly the lazy federal workers are at getting this actually implemented… they want their increased monthly payments (and their retroactive payments to January 2024?) NOW!
“Law that capped what public sector workers can draw from SS existed 20 years. What was the justification?”
The calculation for SS benefits for the people affected by this had been adjusted down because they had pensions and were not low income earners (for whom a more generous formula was used to calculate their SS benefits). Now they will get SS benefits calculated as if they were low income earners.
This is no cause for celebration if you were one of the people who paid SS on every cent you earned over the past decades. This further weakens SS. Next up - illegals.
Here is interesting article about Illinois pensions woes. They changed the pension system for new hires back in 2010. The new pension (tier 2) is going to run afoul of the SS safe harbor rules if not changed. The pensions need to have at least the same benefits as SS.
https://www.illinoispolicy.org/illinois-needs-responsible-tier-2-pension-reform/
Pension or not - they paid for their SS benefits - they need to stop giving it to illegals and others who never paid a dime into it...
thank you
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