Social Security Caregiver Credit Act of 2003

Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 743) to amend the Social Security Act and the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide additional safeguards for Social Security and Supplemental Security Income beneficiaries with representative payees, to enhance the program protections, and for other purposes, as amended.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, Social Security, as everyone in this Chamber knows, touches the lives of virtually every American and serves as a vital safety net for those who retire, become disabled or die. Nearly $500 billion in Social Security and supplemental security income benefits were paid last year to about 50 million retired and disabled workers their families and SSI recipients. These costs represent close to one- fourth of all Federal outlays last year. More importantly, as baby boomers approach retirement age, Social Security's and SSI's combined benefit outlays are expected to double by the time children born this year finish high school. Programs as important, as comprehensive as these require our constant vigilance. We must act today to address inadequate protections for beneficiaries and the programs in order to avoid potentially tragic consequences in the future.

This is why I urge all Members to support the Social Security Protection Act of 2003. This is a bipartisan bill introduced earlier this month by myself and the gentleman from California (Mr. Matsui) along with other Members of Congress. The Protection Act will give the Social Security Administration the additional tools needed to fight activities that drain resources from Social Security and undermine the financial security of beneficiaries.

First, this bill protects the one in eight Social Security and SSI beneficiaries who cannot, for physical or mental reasons, handle their own funds. For these persons, the Social Security Administration appoints an individual or organization called a representative payee to manage their benefits. While most representative payees are conscientious and they are honest, some violate the trust placed in them.

The Social Security Inspector General reported that in the late 1990's over 2,400 representative payees missed about $12 million in benefits. This bill raises the standard for persons and organizations serving as representative payees and imposes stricter regulation and monetary penalties on those who mismanage benefits.

Second, this bill picks up where legislation enacted in 1996 let off in ending benefit payments to those who committed crimes. That legislation denied SSI benefits to fugitive felons. However, these criminals are still allowed to receive Social Security benefits. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that they will pay $526 million out of the Social Security trust fund to these law-breakers over the next 10 years. This is not right, and this legislation denies them these benefits.

The Protection Act also provides tools to further safeguard Social Security programs. Our goals are to help shield Social Security employees from harm while conducting their duties, expanding the Inspector General's ability to stop perpetrators of fraud through new civil monetary penalties, and prevent people from misrepresenting themselves as they provide Social Security-related services.

On top of this, the bill helps individuals with disabilities by, one, making it easier for them to obtain legal representation while applying for benefits by improving the attorney fee withholding process; two, enhancing provisions of the Ticket to Work Program; and, three, encouraging more employers to hire individuals with disabilities by expanding eligibility for the Work Opportunity Tax Credit.

Finally, the bill contains several provisions aimed at correcting inequities in the law regarding benefit coverage and receipt, as well as making technical corrections to the law.

It is our and the agency's duty to protect Social Security programs and the beneficiaries. This bill is the accumulation of bipartisan efforts towards that, and as well as the cooperation and support of the Social Security Administration and the Social Security Inspector General. That is why the 107th Congress's version of the bill, the Social Security Protection Act of 2002, passed this House by an overwhelming bipartisan support of 425 to 0 and passed the Senate as amended under unanimous consent.

I urge the Members today to finish the good work begun in the 107th Congress and vote in favor of the Social Security Protection Act. We must enact these changes quickly to protect the most vulnerable beneficiaries and to stop Social Security from hemorrhaging precious dollars through fraud and benefit misuse.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I insert for the Record two documents. The first is bipartisan summary report language, including a detailed summary of current law and an explanation of each provision and the reasons for the change. The second is a list of organizations, including AARP, that provided letters of support for this bill, with those letters attached.

``The Social Security Protection Act of 2003'' Summary

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Herger), a valued member of the subcommittee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Hayworth), another valued member of the Subcommittee on Social Security of the Committee on Ways and Means.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to say to the gentlewoman from Texas that this levels the playing field and treats the people, or the teachers in Texas as other teachers throughout the entire country.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Hulshof), another valued member of the Committee on Ways and Means.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute.

Mr. Speaker, I remind Members who are going to vote on this issue who are zeroing in on this one small part of this bill, where we have a two-worker family both paying into Social Security, one dies, the survivor either gets their earned benefit or the survivor benefit, whichever is greater.

But in Texas where you have one spouse who has paid nothing into Social Security but paid all into their pension plan, they would receive, if they worked 1 day under the Social Security system, they would receive their full pension and survivor benefits. All we are trying to do is to say if someone works 5 years under Social Security, they can get both. But if they work 1 day, they cannot get both.

This is trying to level the playing field for the millions of teachers, firefighters and others across this country who have paid into Social Security, to level the playing field so the people who never paid into Social Security are not getting a better deal. It is as simple as that.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Brady), a valued member of the Ways and Means subcommittee.

Mr. Speaker, I would remind the other speaker that what we did was picked up the language that the Democrat-controlled Senate passed by unanimous consent in the last Congress and put it in this bill and now have brought it to the floor.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Brady).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to remind the House, even though we have been talking about the Texas situation over most of the time that has been allocated to this bill, exactly what this bill does and exactly why it is and does receive such high bipartisan support. This holds representative payees accountable for mismanaging benefits and increases representative payee oversight. We support that and you support that. It denies Social Security benefits to fugitive felons. That is right. I support that. You support that. It deters fraud by creating new civil penalties for Social Security fraud. All of us agree to that. It helps individuals with disabilities gain access to representation. These are the people that need it most. We agree with that. You agree with that. It helps disabled beneficiaries return to work. This is something that I think that this Congress has done with a ticket to work, and I think have done it in the best tradition of this House, in a very bipartisan way.

Now we come to a little bump in the road. It does involve Texas. I think the gentleman was quite right to put the sign up, ``Don't Mess with Texas,'' because that is a Texas problem. But Texas has discovered a loophole which folds into their pension plan which is unfair to the rest of the country. The General Accounting Office has told us that this is going to amount to about a half a billion dollars in savings once this goes into place, just simply by treating Texas like the rest of the country.

This is not anti-Texas, and it is not intended to punish anybody. As a matter of fact, those that are already receiving those double benefits and the disability benefits as well as their earned pension plans will continue to do so. They plan for their retirement. So we do not take that away; but we do put fairness into the law, and we say that people who do not pay into Social Security should not get a better deal than those who did pay into Social Security.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I ask for a ``yes'' vote.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I must begin by saying that I find the comments of the last speaker, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Brady), to be very troubling. Each of the three organizations that he identified, the Association of Professional Texas Educators, the Texas State Teachers Association, and the American Federation of Teachers, oppose this bill. They have submitted written testimony when at least one of those organization's representatives was stranded in Austin because of an ice storm.

It is fine to talk about teachers; this Republican leadership though has a chance to act. Today they talk about leveling the playing field. It is just that they want to level the playing

field down instead of leveling the playing field up. The Texas teachers who have tried to protect themselves from this terrible government pension offset have confronted a Republican leadership that has been in control here for the last eight years. What have they done about the windfall elimination provision or the government pension offset during that time? They filed a bill that a lot of us have cosponsored. They could have had a hearing in the subcommittee last week on that bill. But what did they choose to do? They took a bill that passed unanimously, that I voted for, that the gentleman from California (Mr. Matsui) voted for, that every Member of this Chamber voted for last year, and they added a provision to it, on page 70 of the bill, section 418, a provision that is not even clearly identified in the summary of the bill. This bill has the effect of taking away a right that Texas teachers and teachers in other parts of this country have utilized and which they enjoy a perfect right to utilize.

It is legal and proper for teachers to do this, and the reason they must act for themselves is that this Congress, under Republican leadership, has failed to act for them. This self-help should be of little surprise when all they hear is talk up here and when the Republican leadership will not even set this for a hearing.

Yes, they had a hearing on a bill that passed unanimously last year. They just tucked in a little provision they did not tell us about that hurts the teachers of Texas and many other States. Then what did they do after they held a hearing when our teachers were stuck in an ice storm but they were so eager to move forward that they would not wait for them to get to Washington? Did they bring it up for a vote in the subcommittee? No, they did not. Did they bring it up for a vote in the full committee on Ways and Means? No, they did not. Instead they brought it directly to the floor today in a surprise move announced only a couple of legislative days after this was taken up in committee. Now they propose to bring it up under a procedure where debate is limited and we cannot even offer an amendment to take out this offending provision.

Yes, I think we should do something about felons getting Social Security checks. I am ready to vote for that. But why do we have to treat our teachers like felons and deny them the benefits that they have rightly earned?

The loss of a spouse is difficult enough to bear. But when a widow or a widower has devoted their lifetime to public service as a teacher often at low wages, they get another cruel surprise. When these former educators lose their husband or wife, the Social Security Administration does not send them a letter to console them in their mourning, it reduces the spousal Social Security benefit by two-thirds of the teacher's pension. That is what these teachers are concerned about.

To the average retired teacher in Texas, or anywhere else, this means a loss of about $360 a month. For an elderly retiree, you can call it an ``offset,'' but for them it is mighty upsetting. Confronted with this unfair offset and the technique that teachers have had to rely on as self-help to fix this injustice, the Republican leadership has not been willing to correct the problem. Instead, they want to target the cure. What a contrast, too, with the rest of their legislative package.

The Republicans could have fixed this injustice in a separate bill or they could have fixed this injustice in the bill that they are going to be taking up tomorrow, that began as a very appropriate, unanimously supported bill much like this one. It is called the ``Armed Forces Tax Fairness Act,'' and it is designed to treat our Armed Forces fairly as they serve in harm's way throughout the world.

But what began as a bill to help our Armed Forces has been debased with measures that would allow foreigners to bet on horse races tax- free, certainly good news to the Turks and the French; it would exempt fishing tackle boxes from an excise tax; and exempt bows and arrows from a similar tax.

I support tax fairness for our military because they secure our country. But I also support retirement security for our teachers because they build the foundation upon which our democracy rests. The Republican leadership is today tackling the issue of tackle boxes, but it tells our teachers to ``Go fish.'' They will cut bow and arrow taxes but put a bulls-eye on teachers. Surely we can also fix the injustice that this offset inflicts on America's educators.

We ask for a ``no'' vote on this bill and we have a message to this entire Congress that has not been heard, apparently by even some of our own representatives, but certainly not by the sneaky tactics that got this provision in the bill. That message, is, ``Don't mess with Texas.'' [Doggett holds bumper sticker] Don't mess with Texas teachers. Vote ``no'' on this bad bill.

Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. Speaker, we are right to be concerned about our teachers. They are overworked. They are underpaid. We are concerned about them. I think had it not been for study over the last year or so, I would be giving the exact same speech today as my Democratic colleagues from Texas because we are all concerned. It turns out this is not exactly the case I thought it was.

Recently we held a hearing on this legislation. We wanted to hear from our Texas teachers, so we requested the chairman invite our Texas State Teachers Association, our Texas Federation of Teachers and the Association of Texas Professional Educators to testify. Unfortunately, they were not able to because of various reasons, the snow being one of them, but we submitted their testimony on their behalf and urged members of the subcommittee to study it.

During the hearing, it was shown that teachers in government pensions are not being singled out. They are not. The government pension offset affects more than just teachers. It affects more than 5 million people in all sorts of State, local and Federal Government pensions who do not pay into Social Security. This is important to know because a lot of my teachers feel like they are being targeted, being singled out.

My main concern during the hearing that I expressed that my teachers are so upset about, that a widower who has worked a lifetime to earn their government pension, like a Texas teacher, will keep less of their deceased spouse's Social Security than a widower who has worked and paid into Social Security. The Social Security Administration conclusively proved this is not the case. It turns out it is just the opposite.

Teachers in TRS are able to keep the same, or more, of their spouse's Social Security benefits than other widowers who have worked, like nurses or waitresses. That is because the government pension offset law reduces their husband's or their deceased spouse's Social Security by two-thirds of their pension. But for other widowers, for waitresses, nurses and others who paid into Social Security, their husband's benefits are reduced even more, 100 percent of their own benefit.

What I think confuses teachers and many is that if someone has not worked, they have worked inside the home all their life, have not earned Social Security, they keep all of their husband's or their deceased spouses's benefits because they depend upon it more. Social Security is extremely complicated. There is a great deal of misinformation going around the Internet and by well-meaning individuals and organizations these days.

What frustrates me most is that teachers were not told about this situation years ago. They feel they have paid into Social Security for years and they do not get the help when they need it the most. It would have been so much better if this would have been reformed years ago, where you put aside your own contribution to Social Security into a traditional retirement account, where that money grew for you over the years, you could take it with you, it was yours to own and you would not be surprised by some government formula done 20 years ago. That is where we need to head.

How we can help teachers today and others I think is to focus on the windfall elimination provision. It sounds complicated, but the principle is, for me, if you have worked hard and paid into Social Security and you have worked hard and paid into a government pension, you should receive more of both. I am thinking here of teachers who have contributed their hard-earned pay into Social Security through a second job, teachers who have contributed to Social Security in another State before moving to Texas or Georgia, thinking of future teachers who already have a career, we would like to get them into the classroom to help but they are afraid of losing their retirement benefits. I believe the best and the most timely solution to help these people, these teachers, and others who have earned two pensions, is to modernize the windfall elimination provision to make it more fair.

I have asked our subcommittee chairman, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Shaw), to hold hearings on the windfall elimination provision. This is where I think we can take a formula that is outdated, I think a bit arbitrary, and focus on the principles if you have paid into Social Security and you have paid into your government pension, that you keep more of the Social Security that you have paid into.

Mr. Speaker, clearing up a couple of misconceptions there, I would love to be able to tell my Texas teachers, whom I love, what they want to hear. But I respect them too much to do that. I want to tell them the truth. The fact of the matter is, this was not snuck in. This was passed in the Senate last session. And this Republican House, with Texas lawmakers from both sides said, let us discuss this in open debate and make sure it is the right way, which is exactly what we are doing. Both parties have had a chance to work on this issue since 1983. We have not come up with a solution yet. We are working to do that.

Finally, I want our Texas teachers to be treated fairly. I want our Texas waitresses and nurses and other moms to be treated fairly, too.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.

This is an issue so important to some of us who represent districts in Texas and Georgia, and it is important nationwide because there has been legislation in the last 4 years that had a majority of the U.S. House of Representatives as cosponsors to repeal the offset for public employees, for teachers, firefighters and police officers. The gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Hayworth) was a cosponsor of the bill 2 years ago, and now we are gathering signatures again. It is a system that is wrong, and it needs to be changed; but in my 5 years, we have not had a chance to address it on the floor of the House of Representatives.

I know my colleagues talk about the 1 day as a loophole. Well, it may be a loophole, but it is also complying with the law. It is interesting, we are going to close a loophole and allow firefighters, police officers and teachers to go to work 1 day in a system that has Social Security and their retirement system and be eligible for Social Security. Yet we are willing to open up millions of loopholes for corporations to be able to walk through.

I regret to say Enron is from the area I am from in Houston, and they have not paid Federal taxes in 6 years. We do not mind opening loopholes big enough for corporations to drive trucks through, but for a school teacher who wants to get her husband's Social Security benefits because she has taught for 30 years teaching our children, we are closing up that loophole. They get penalized on their widow's benefits. We are talking about widows' benefits and not somebody that is double dipping, and I know previously that is what the committee wanted to do.

Mr. Speaker, I am opposed to H.R. 743, and I hope that Members will look at it to change it. Some public employees are not covered by Social Security, and in Texas it is particularly our police officers, firefighters and teachers. Our school districts can be part of Social Security or not. The individual employee, whether they are a cafeteria worker or custodian or a teacher, they do not have a choice. All they want to do is serve our children, and yet they are getting penalized.

My example is the best one I can think of. My wife and I have been married 33 years. She has been a teacher in Texas for 26 years. If I died tomorrow, she would be penalized on all the benefits that I have put into Social Security. I have paid the maximum for I-do-not-know- how-many years. She would be penalized because she is a public schoolteacher in Texas.

H.R. 743 has a great many good things in it, but this is so bad we ought to have enough votes on the floor to be able to defeat it and bring it back without this provision in it, or at least bring it back and debate it fully on the floor with an opportunity to amend it.

Full spousal benefit ought to be if I paid into Social Security, my wife as a widow when I pass away ought to get the same benefit no matter whether she is a stay-at-home housewife or actually worked as a schoolteacher. We should not punish teachers and firefighters and police officers by stripping away this right unless we address the underlying problem of the government pension offset.

Closing a loophole, that is what the current law is. And in Texas I have a good example. I have a teacher in my wife's school district who was 73 years old. Her husband died in her early sixties. She was receiving his Social Security widow's benefit. She could not retire because of the cut she would take in her Social Security benefit from her husband. They were married many years so she was entitled to it. What she did, she went and worked in a school district that had Social Security and teacher retirement for that 1 day at 73 years old. How long do we want people to have to work?

It is just outrageous what the law has made people have to do. Teachers across our country are chronically underpaid. We give lots of lip service on the floor. Yesterday we passed a resolution about Lutheran educators. I am talking about public school teachers who teach our children every day. Is it perfect? Of course not. But this is the only thing we can do on the Federal level because teachers' salaries are set by the school districts and by the States. But this is something we can do to say we are not going to slap them in

the face. We are going to make sure that if someone is a teacher and has taught all those years, and their husband has been under Social Security and they pass away, and I say husband because most of the teachers are women. They are the ones in their retirement years who have less than we do as men, and yet we are taking that away from them. Again, that is just outrageous.

We find it harder and harder to attract teachers. Let us make sure if teachers are married to someone who pays into Social Security, they can get their widow's benefit without being punished for it. This issue is close to the heart for a lot of us in Texas.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding me this time, and I rise in support of H.R. 743, the Social Security Protection Act.

There are a lot of issues that are addressed that are important to Americans with disabilities that depend upon Title II and Title XVI. Individuals facing the challenges of life with a disability need these protections that are proposed on the representative payee provisions.

There are about 6 million Americans that receive Social Security and supplemental security income. These beneficiaries often have family members or loved ones who act on their behalf, and yet there are some of those receiving these benefits that go to services, a fee for this service of being a representative payee. If someone receives a fee for this service, now they must be bonded and licensed. And if this representative payee chooses to pray on the disability or the elderly, society's most vulnerable, then tough civil monetary penalties will result. These changes are important and necessary.

Another provision deserving mention, Mr. Speaker, is contained within section 401 through 405. In 1999, this body enacted some breakthrough changes for individuals with disabilities, specifically the Ticket to Work and Work Incentive Improvement Act. The Ticket to Work rolled over barriers that prevented countless employable individuals with disabilities from rejoining the workforce.

Yet now we need to make some technical corrections. For instance, one of the things in the original Ticket to Work bill was a demonstration project which allowed the commissioners of Social Security to look at other ways to employ those that want to rejoin the workforce. One of the technical corrections is that we extend the 5-year limit on designing and implementing these worthy demonstration projects.

I am especially interested personally in abolishing this so-called ``income cliff.'' That is, if an individual is employable and works and achieves earnings up to a certain amount, if that individual makes $1 more than that, they fall off the cliff and lose all of their Social Security disability benefits. I encourage this sliding scale, for every $2 earned, maybe losing $1 of disability benefits. Yet we need to make those technical corrections to the bill so employer networks will accept these beneficiaries that are participating in this $1 for $2 offset demonstration project. So these are worthy changes.

Let me quickly address the issue of my colleagues from Texas. There was a recent study that the General Accounting Office came back to our committee in August of last year with, at the request of the chairman, and found this last-day exemption, this loophole, found that nearly 5,000 individuals in two States were taking advantage of this loophole in order to get around the requirements of law.

What we do is simply implement the changes of the GAO. What the General Accounting Office found was that we were allowing, current law was allowing a select group of individuals with really a small investment of work time and only minimal Social Security contributions to really gain access to potentially many years of full Social Security benefits. I recognize this is a tough situation for those Members from those particular States; but as the chairman alluded after the last speaker, this is something that brings those States in line with the other 48 States. Again a difficult but necessary, important change. These changes are overdue. I urge adoption of H.R. 743.