[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 1]
[House]
[Page 952]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




            EQUAL TREATMENT OF PUBLIC SERVANTS ACT, H.R. 711

  (Mr. RATCLIFFE asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. RATCLIFFE. Mr. Speaker, I am humbled to represent thousands of 
teachers, firefighters, and law enforcement officers across the Fourth 
District of Texas who have dedicated their careers to public service.
  As the son of two schoolteachers and as a former law enforcement 
official myself, I have a personal and deep-felt appreciation for those 
who shape future generations by educating our children and protecting 
the communities where we live.
  Right now there are nearly 900,000 of these public servants who are 
being unjustly denied their hard-earned retirement benefits through an 
arbitrary formula called the windfall elimination provision, which can 
reduce their Social Security checks by up to $413 a month.
  That is why I have cosponsored and why I strongly support H.R. 711, 
the Equal Treatment of Public Servants Act, to reduce and to eliminate 
the windfall elimination provision.
  I urge my colleagues to take it up for a vote as soon as possible so 
that we can ensure that our public servants receive both the Social 
Security benefits and the pensions that they most certainly have 
earned.

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