Sen.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein

Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., on March 14 introduced legislation that would repeal Social Security's government pension offset (GPO) and windfall elimination provision (WEP).

GPO reduces or eliminates Social Security's spousal and survivors' benefits for retirees who collect pensions from jobs that were not covered by the program while WEP slashes the Social Security retirement benefits that can be collected by indviduals who are eligible for them in addition to pensions from non-covered jobs.

The bill (S. 619) is identical to one Feinstein proposed in the previous Congress that never made it out of committee. This bill is likely to suffer the same fate, as the projected cost of more than $60 billion over 10 years is too much for most lawmakers to support, especially with federal budget deficits already so high and Social Security's long-term financial future so shaky.