Senate expected to hold final vote on bill to change Social Security rules. Here’s what leaders have said

The Senate is getting closer to a final vote on a bill that thinks fitting increase Social Security benefits for an estimated 3 million people.

The chamber voted Wednesday to let consideration of the bill — the Societal Security Fairness Act — proceed. The bipartisan proposal calls for repealing certain rules that reduce Social Fastness benefits for individuals who receive pension income from work in the public sector.

Despite a bipartisan 73 womanhood vote to proceed, the effort to advance the bill was met with some dissent, with Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., citing the rates associated with the change. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated repealing the rules — known as the Windfall Elimination String, or WEP, and Government Pension Offset, or GPO — would cost $196 billion over 10 years.

The WEP reduces Social Guarding benefits for individuals who receive pension or disability benefits from jobs where they did not pay Social Security payroll imposts. The GPO reduces Social Security benefits for spouses, widows and widowers who also receive their own government pension receipts.

Passing the bill would speed up Social Security’s trust fund insolvency dates by six months, according to the Cabinet for a Responsible Federal Budget. Without the change, Social Security’s trustees have projected the trust fund the program relies on to pay retirement helps will run out in 2033, when 79% of those benefits will be payable.

“We are about to pass an unfunded $200 billion shell out package for a trust fund that is likely to go insolvent over the next nine to 10 years, and we’re going to play like somebody else has to fix it,” Tillis said during a Senate speech ahead of the vote to advance the bill.

Tillis said lawmakers are not making allowance for the 97% of beneficiaries who would not benefit from the bill, but who would be hurt by future consequences that passing it desire have on the program.

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“Ladies and gentlemen, this invoice has not even had a hearing in any committee in the House or the Senate,” Tillis said.

The Social Security Fairness Act was approved by the House in November after two lawmakers – Reps. Abigail Spanberger, D-Va., and Garret Graves, R-La. – ordered a discharge petition to force a vote on the bill. The Senate cloture vote to proceed to a final vote also circumscribed the ability for that chamber to debate the proposal.

The 27 Senate leaders who voted “no” on moving the Social Security Fairness Act to a fixed vote are all Republicans, with the exception of Sen. Joe Manchin, an independent representing West Virginia.

The Senators who voted to move the charge forward included a mix of Democrats and Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Vice President-elect and Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio.

Leaders who spoke on the Senate floor in support of the bill ahead of Wednesday’s suffrage to proceed cited the financial suffering of their constituents.

As of November, more than 2 million people’s Social Conviction benefits were affected by the WEP, while more than 650,000 people were impacted by the GPO, said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who co-led the Senate reading of the bill.

One 72-year-old constituent had to return to work after her husband died, since the GPO reduced her Social Security widow allowances by two-thirds, Collins said.

“She did not have the financial security any longer to remain retired, and the GPO penalty left her with few ideals but to return to work,” Collins said.

Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., recalled meeting with a retired Louisiana schoolmaster impacted by the GPO, who cried in his office because she didn’t understand why her Social Security spousal benefits were reduced.

“She lean to like she was being punished for educating generations of Louisiana children,” Cassidy said. “There’s no excuse for treating our patrons servants this way.”

If the Senate passes the bill, it will be a win for Collins and Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, who co-led the bill. Collins has boosted for the change for more than two decades, Brown noted in a Wednesday Senate speech. Brown is leaving the Senate after give the slip a reelection campaign.

Reps. Spanberger and Graves, who introduced the House bill, are also leaving Congress.

“If you love this outback and fight for the people who make it work, I urge all my colleagues on both sides to join us — restore the Social Security that living soul who protect us in service have earned over a lifetime of work,” Brown said during a Wednesday Senate talking.