JOINT RESOLUTION MEMORIALIZING THE PRESIDENT AND THE CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES TO ENACT THE SOCIAL SECURITY FAIRNESS ACT OF 2007

your Memorialists, the Members of the One Hundred and Twenty-third Legislature of the State of Maine now assembled in the First Regular Session, most respectfully present and petition the President and the Congress of the United States as follows:

WHEREAS,  Social Security is a trust fund that is intended as a compact between generations, yet it has not always been treated in a manner similar to other trust funds; and

WHEREAS,  Maine’s educators, transportation workers, police, firefighters and other civil servants, as well as their spouses, have collectively contributed tens of billions of dollars to Social Security and should in good faith receive such benefits as have been projected to them annually in their personalized Social Security statements; and

WHEREAS,  the federal "government pension offset provision" and the federal "windfall elimination provision," enacted, respectively, in 1977 and 1983, have effectively treated state government pensions as if they were a provenance of Social Security, which they are not, and have in this treatment appropriated hundreds of billions of dollars previously entrusted to Social Security by the civil servants of 15 states and by their spouses; and

WHEREAS,  by unfairly taking these hundreds of billions of dollars from just 15 states, including Maine, these twin federal policies have adversely and disproportionately affected Maine’s ability to attract and retain effective and qualified workers, as well as Maine’s overall economy, its schools, its tax base and its taxpayers and other residents; and

WHEREAS,  the State of Maine has worked hard, over generations, to attract, retain and provide for its state workers in their retirement and has scrupulously guarded and invested the funds entrusted to its retirement system, bringing those reserves to 100 times the value they had just 4 decades ago; and

WHEREAS,  federal legislation has been introduced entitled the Social Security Fairness Act of 2007, proposing to repeal these unfair takings from Maine and from other states; and

WHEREAS,  all Members of the Maine Congressional Delegation are cosponsors of this legislation, along with more than 200 other members of Congress as of mid-February; now, therefore, be it

That We, your Memorialists, respectfully urge and request that the United States Congress enact the Social Security Fairness Act of 2007; and be it further

That suitable copies of this resolution, duly authenticated by the Secretary of State, be transmitted to the Honorable George W. Bush, President of the United States, the President of the Senate of the United States, the Speaker of the House of Representatives of the United States and each Member of the Maine Congressional Delegation.