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The long-standing campaign to repeal two old laws that cut Social Security benefits for federal retirees began anew this week.

Reps. Howard Berman, D-Calif., Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, and Buck McKeon, R-Calif., revived the fight with a press conference on Capitol Hill Tuesday, bemoaning the 1977 Government Pension Offset and the 1983 Windfall Elimination Provision laws and unveiling a new bill to rescind them.

Both affect federal employees who entered the government before 1984 and are covered by the Civil Service Retirement System. Employees in CSRS do not pay into Social Security, receiving a government pension instead.

The Government Pension Offset law cuts Social Security benefits that some employees, including widows or widowers, would have received from their spouses. The Windfall Elimination Provision reduces Social Security benefits for public employees who also worked in private sector jobs where they paid into the Social Security system.

Veteran federal employees and their counterparts in state and local government loathe the laws. For years, groups that represent these workers have pushed Congress to repeal them. In the last Congress, 327 lawmakers co-sponsored a House bill to do so, but it never came to a vote.

This time around, the Democrats are in charge, and the newly introduced bill already has 182 co-sponsors. Berman and crew on Tuesday gave a valiant description of the injustices the laws impose, showcasing teachers, police officers and union folks who are hurting due to their effects.

Margaret Baptiste, president of the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association, spoke for the federal sector.

"The Social Security offsets deny many of our older members, particularly women, the dignified retirement they expected," she said.

NARFE's numbers show that as of December 2003, about 400,000 people were affected by the offset and 635,000 by the windfall elimination. Those large numbers include nonfederal public workers, and mean that federal employees enjoy the support of powerful lobby groups like the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and the National Education Association.

Repealing the bills would be expensive. In 2003, then-Social Security Commissioner Jo Anne Barnhart testified that abandoning the two laws would cost $62.2 billion over the next 10 years. The lean budget year combined with the Democrats' new pay-as-you-go rules will likely prove lethal to the effort.

So, despite newly empowered Democrats and a coalition with oomph, the lawmakers -- unprompted -- practically acknowledged defeat before the new round of fighting began.

"It will continue to face a very uphill battle," Doggett said.

"It's a tough budgetary issue," McKeon said.

"Difficult fights take a long period of time," Berman said.

So for now, the laws remain, as do their accompanying cries of indignation.

COMMENTS

• I have paid social security for 35 years, 28 of those years are called substantial and count as credit toward social security. When I retired from Texas Teacher Retirement, I had heard about the offset law and talked with people from Texas Teacher Retirement System about my wife woring her last day at a school district that paid social security. I was told that that possibility did not exist. We retired without that last day and the next year colleagues of my wife worked their last day in a district that paid social security. They are now drawing half of their spouses social security benefits. My wife worked for 39 quarters and can only draw less than 3 percent. Somehow this doesn't seem fair. J. Floyd Worley Posted September 5, 2007 2:44 PM
• As a retired military member from both Civil Service the Social Security Fairness Act (S.349) and the Windfall Elimination Provision Relief Act (H.R. 1690) are discriminatory and need to be repealed. Not two years from now, but NOW! I chose to serve this great Nation both in the military and as a Federal Civl Servant. I never thought the Federal Government would do this to not only me, but to thousands of federal retirees, but to school teachers as well. This Congress has been a "do-nothing" Congress. I've written my elected representatives, and also recently voiced my displeasure to President Bush. Why President Bush? One of my Senators urged me to do so. If you want anything done, get off your rear end and DO something. No one is going to do it for you. You must be pro-active and take action yourself! We voted these people in, and we can certainly vote them out. If it were Congress' pay and retirement benefits, do you really believe that they would not have acted by now? This has been going on for at least 5 years, and nothing has been done yet. Let's stick together and get Congress to earn their pay! Indundate Congress with mail. Remember elections will be coming up soon. Vote them in or vote them out! It is as simple as that! Donald G. Kite Posted August 9, 2007 12:59 AM
• There was no reason for the government workers not to fall under a grandfather clause when on the heals of this law all future government employees fell into the new FERS pay system, and those who were eligible to retire at that time were not affected at all. Not much thought was given to its impact. Benedict Zollo Posted March 23, 2007 4:18 PM