U.S. Rep. Garret Graves says he will not run for reelection to Congress.(Nathan Howard/Getty Images)
In his final months in office, Republican U.S. Rep. Garret Graves is making a push to repeal two provisions that have reduced monthly Social Security benefits for hundreds of thousands of public agency retirees.
More than 200 members of the U.S. House of Representatives have joined the Baton Rouge-area congressman in his petition to have his Social Security Fairness Act discharged. The bill, which would eliminate the Government Pension Offset and Windfall Elimination Provision, did not make it out of committee but has broad bipartisan support on the House floor.
The Windfall Elimination Provision reduces Social Security benefits of an individual who receives a public pension from a job not covered by Social Security. The Government Pension Offset reduces by two-thirds the spousal benefits of people who work in public jobs not covered by security.
In a press release, Graves said the Windfall Elimination Provision impacts approximately 2 million Social Security beneficiaries, and the Government Pension Offset affects nearly 800,000 retirees.
Public school teachers, professors at state colleges and other federal, state and local workers would see an increase in their Social Security benefits if the provisions are eliminated.
Graves aims to have the bill discharged from the House Ways and Means Committee when Congress returns in November with the hope of passing the bill through both chambers by the end of his term in January. Graves announced he would not running for reelection shortly after his 6th Congressional District was redistricted to become Louisiana’s second majority-minority seat to account for the one-third of the state’s voters who are Black
Graves sat down recently with the Illuminator to discuss his long-shot bid to pass his landmark Social Security legislation. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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Illuminator: Why is it so important for the Social Security Fairness Act to pass this year?
Graves: For over 40 years, you have folks in our community that are some of the most important careers — like teachers — that have a profound influence on the next generation … and so you’re talking about penalizing folks or disincentivizing good people to join those occupations, because, what happens under current law is there, they’re penalized, they’re discriminated against. They literally have a reduction in retirement compared to anyone else who just has private sector experience. So that’s number one.
Number two, because for 40 years now, these folks have had money stolen from them, and there’s no other word to describe it. You can use stolen, you can use embezzled. They have had their due retirement stolen from them.
Illuminator: Why didn’t the bill make it through committee?
Graves: The Social Security trust fund is projected to become insolvent by 2034-2035. And so what our bill does is, candidly, it will cause an increase in expenditures because you’re removing this penalty to public workers or to their spouses or widows. And so it does draw down the trust fund faster. But relative to the insolvency of the trust fund, we’re not talking about taking it from 2034 to, you know, 2030 or anything like that. It’s a minor shift compared to the larger insolvency problem or reform that is needed for Social Security.
It has to go through the House Ways and Means Committee, and that’s the tax committee. That committee has jurisdiction over Social Security, and the chairman of the committee (Rep. Jason Smith, R-Missouri) is a good friend of mine. I told him, “Look, I’m telling you right now this Congress is going to be the one, so you can either work with us or you can have tire tracks on you.”
We sat there and negotiated for months trying to get to a spot. He actually … offered several different offers to us … and we were kind of going back and forth. So there was never an adversary.
Illuminator: Do you know how much this would increase expenditures?
Graves: It will be billions of (dollars in) additional payments per year … but I’ve got to emphasize this: People have had their money stolen or diverted for over 40 years now. We’re not asking to go back to those people that retired 20 years ago and say, “Give them all their back pay.” I think this was a real sacrifice that we made, showing good faith, our bill only addresses things prospectively.
Illuminator: You have a lot of higher education employees in your district. Have they reached out over this bill?
Graves: We have had regular dialogue. There’s a group of teachers that literally call our office every single week asking for updates: How many co-sponsors? Any updated negotiations? If we were going to file a discharge petition on this.
Illuminator: What do you think your odds are?
Graves: You don’t become the second most co-sponsored bill in Congress on a whim. You don’t. I think that our chances of getting this bill out of the house are very good. I’ll remind you, both the speaker (Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana) and the majority leader (Steve Scalise, R-Louisiana) co-sponsored this bill.
We’re going to get this thing to the president’s desk.
Illuminator: You mentioned that this bill is purely prospective. Is there more you would’ve liked to have done on Social Security reform that you compromised on?
Graves: I think the fair thing to do would be to make sure everyone is treated equally. Meaning, if I retired 20 years ago, and based upon that historic 20 years, the government’s taken $50,000 from me, then I think what is fair is that the government actually pays that back.
I think that’s what’s fair. So we have already compromised in regard to how we’ve drafted that bill.
Illuminator: Had you considered taking up other issues related to Social Security and public pensions? For example, a lot of faculty don’t consider the optional retirement plan offered by the Teachers Retirement System of Louisiana meets the requirements to be exempted from Social Security.
Graves: I wanted to focus on the legislation in the Social Security realm that I think will have the biggest impact. Are there other things that could be done to perfect Social Security? Absolutely, there’s no doubt about it.
I think that issue is more so of a state issue than it is a federal one. And I think that the legislation we’re working on will be more impactful in regard to benefiting more people, lifting them out of the tough situations that they’re in.
I think part of the overall solution is that there needs to be more forthrightness in regard to making clear to some of these potential hires on the potential penalty they’ll experience at retirement.
Illuminator: This is kind of your last fight before the end of your term. How are you feeling about it?
Graves: I got plenty of fight left in me! We have some real goals related to the restoration of coastal Louisiana, some issues on flood insurance, issues on energy policy. So we have got a number of other things that we’re working on right now.
But look, whether we were coming back in January or we were going to be leaving office in January, this is one of those things that’s just wrong and it needs to be fixed.
We found the things that were just wrong and gone through and tried to fix them. This one’s a big deal because it implicates a lot of money, and it implicates a lot of people. But in many cases, in fact, let’s say in 95% of the cases, these aren’t rich people that are going to be making millions of dollars off of this, and they sure as heck can’t afford a lobbyist.
Louisiana is one of the most impacted states in the country. I did have the pleasure of working side by side with a lot of these people, whether they were sheriff’s deputies, whether they were teachers, state employees, and I will tell you that the far majority of them do not deserve to be treated this way.
Being in a position like this, we have the rare opportunity and the honor of actually being able to try to fix it, and that’s what we’re going to do, because that’s what we got hired to do.
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