Washington, DC - Patrick Yoes, National President of the Fraternal Order of Police, is calling on the House to immediately bring H.R. 82, the “Social Security Fairness Act,” to the floor for a vote.

“For 40 years, our nation’s retired public servants have seen their benefits stolen by a grossly unfair system. Now, we are in the best position in a generation to rectify this injustice and fully repeal the Windfall Elimination Provision and Government Pension Offset,” Yoes said. “The House should be able to pass a bill with 323 cosponsors, almost three-fourths of that body, quickly. My members keep asking me how a bill with this much support cannot get a floor vote and I can’t give them a good answer—because there isn’t one.

“The FOP will exhaust every possible opportunity to get this legislation to the President’s desk before the end of this Congress,” Yoes continued. “This includes supporting a discharge petition.

“When public employees earn a Social Security benefit through other work, they should receive that benefit in full without being penalized because of their public service,” Yoes said. The dedicated police officers, firefighters, teachers and other government employees who paid into the Social Security system aren’t asking for a handout, they just want what they rightfully earned.”

In addition to the bill’s support in the House, the Senate version of the bill, S. 597, has 59 cosponsors. This support, along with the support of the bill’s original sponsor, means the bill has a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate if everyone who cosponsors the bill votes for it on the floor.

“With this much support for the legislation, we cannot afford to miss this opportunity,” Yoes said.