LETTER: Social Security Fairness Act will eliminate many injustices

In his Sunday commentary regarding the proposed Social Security Fairness Act, Brenton Smith states that the act would provide benefits to people who haven’t contributed to Social Security. Perhaps he should read the bill because that statement is not true.

I’m a retired Clark County School District teacher, but I also worked at various endeavors and paid Social Security tax on those earnings. But because I get a pension from the Public Employee Retirement System for income that was not subject to Social Security taxes when earned, my Social Security that I should be drawing is reduced by 60 percent because of the “windfall elimination provision.”

To add insult to injury, because I get a pension from PERS, I am prohibited from receiving any Social Security survivor benefits should my husband pre-decease me thanks to the “government pension offset.”

Mr. Brenton states that if the Act were to pass it would cost future retirees about $600 billion in benefits. The Social Security Fairness Act addresses the windfall elimination provision and the government pension offset, both of which reduced or removed benefits that were earned.

With all the other waste and largesse being handed out by our president and Congress, I feel that I am entitled to receive the Social Security benefits that other ordinary citizens currently receive just because they don’t receive a pension from PERS. I would like to thank Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto for co-sponsoring the Social Security Fairness Act which, in my opinion, corrects the current system that penalizes many public employees throughout the United States.