At approximately 4:30 p.m. on Sunday, President Joe Biden signed the bill that ends the Government Pension Offset and the Windfall Elimination Provision for Social Security. The ceremony was one that public employees such as teachers, firefighters, police and many more public workers have long awaited. As a retired teacher, I was thrilled, but I was also extremely angry!
I was angry because at the ceremony, Maine Sen. Susan Collins was not sufficiently recognized for her tireless efforts to repeal these onerous laws!
There should have been more gratitude and recognition for Collins’s longstanding fight to repeal these provisions. Remarks were made that suggested that the efforts to repeal the offsets began in 2020. Not so! Collins was working for repeal back in 2002! Petitioned and encouraged by Maine teachers and the Maine State Teachers Association, she held the first Senate hearing on the offsets in 2003 and along with the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California, first introduced the Social Security Fairness Act in 2005. She has kept a repeal bill on the agenda since then, and just last month she and Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, called on leadership to immediately bring their legislation to the Senate floor for a vote, where it passed, 76-20. A true bipartisan victory, but a true Susan Collins victory as well!
So — when the paperwork is all done and earned benefits are finally being distributed to the retired workers who earned them, when finally the checks have arrived and celebrations are in order, then everyone impacted should lift a toast of thanks to Collins for the more than 20 years of work she did for us!
Thanks, Collins!
Sue Shaw
Penobscot
