Latest / Blue Grit Podcast: The Voice of Texas Law Enforcement / #094- Understanding WEP's Effect on Social Security H.R. 82

Transcript

#094- Understanding WEP's Effect on Social Security H.R. 82 · Blue Grit Podcast: The Voice of Texas Law Enforcement

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's important to understand that you have to be fully qualified to receive Social Security benefits for this to impact you at all the unfair practice that has been going on under Windfall Elimination for all these decades.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Welcome everybody.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: This is what was supposed to be on the Facebook live episode.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Unfortunately, we didn't get to go live with it, so we are going to record it.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: Get it posted as quickly as we can.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: What we want to talk about is HR 82, the Social Security Fairness Act of 2023.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: Oddly enough, signed into law yesterday, on January 5th 2025.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: But we want to give you some details about it, maybe generate some additional interest and provide you with information that a lot of you probably haven't had before.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Now.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: I will say this, by the way I'm Kevin Lawrence.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: I'm the executive director of TMPA.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: I'm also the chairman of trustees for the Texas FOP, and my first trip to Washington DC to lobby on behalf of police officers was in the early 1990s I think it was 92 or 93.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: And this issue was on the agenda then.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: It has been on the agenda every session since then.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: It has been so at least 30 years that TMPA, fop, other groups have been working on trying to get this unfair, these two unfair provisions overturned and it's you know, it's finally happened.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: So, having said that, other people in attendance, I'm going to let everybody introduce themselves, but I'm going to start with Clint McNair because he's in a unique position.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: He works for TMPA, but he's got another title he can throw out here for us.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: Go ahead, clint.
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: Hey guys, I'm glad to be on with everybody.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: I'm Clint McNair, a field services supervisor over at TMPA and the current president for Texas FOP.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: And then we've got a couple of guys from the McLean agency.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: Matt, you want to chime in here?
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: Sure, sure, matt McLean.
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: I'm here with Chad and we're the financial services division for the team PA, and this is just a really, really big deal, so we wanted to be on here.
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: We're glad to get the invitation to talk about this most important of bills that has been passed here.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: And Colin McLaughlin, and Colin hasn't chimed in yet.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: I know he's still got his mute button on there.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: Colin, I hope I'm not mispronouncing your name, partner.
• 2:46
  Speaker 4: No, you got it right.
• 2:47
  Speaker 4: And sorry I'll have to be on and off mute here because I had some conflicts, but I'm going to stay on when I am on mute.
• 2:52
  Speaker 4: But yeah, colin McLaughlin, I'm the regional director for Senator Cornyn here in North Texas.
• 2:57
  Speaker 4: Just proud to be on with you and let me know if you have any questions.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: OK, great.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: Well then, while before we lose you because I know you're a busy man and you may have to cut out and go do other things, but before we lose you I want to point something out.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: This thing has been nip and tuck and nip and tuck and nip and tuck, like I say, for decades.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: This current iteration finally got to the point that it was ready to actually be passed.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: It was passed out of the House, I want to say, right around Thanksgiving, sent over to the Senate.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: It was heard on the Senate floor on December, the 18th, and we were getting phone calls and emails and texts from folks in San Jose saying, hey, reach out to your senators.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: We need this many votes to get to make this thing happen.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: And we reached out to Senator Cruz's office and, by the way, senator Cruz led the opposition.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: He was doing everything he could to kill this thing and I but you know I called Colin, said hey, we would really appreciate the senator's support.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: Colin was very blunt with me.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: He said, hey, the senator, senator, the senator's support.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: Colin was very blunt with me.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: He said, hey, senator Cornyn is going to vote no.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: And I said, okay, I get it, I understand.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: Would you please relay this message to us.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: And Colin, I don't know what happened between then and the vote, but when the vote was actually taken, senator Cornyn walked up there and voted in favor of the bill, and I can't tell you well, I shouldn't say it, but it brought a huge smile to my face.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: We were all very appreciative of that fact.
• 4:31
  Speaker 4: Well, I certainly appreciate you saying that and you know these things are sort of nip and tuck until the very end and he's listening to a variety of different constituents and associations and folks who will be impacted.
• 4:43
  Speaker 4: You know, both in favor and in opposition to the bill and you know I didn't get a play-by-play update all the way up into the very last minute when he decided to vote yes.
• 4:52
  Speaker 4: But, as our legislative director said, the senator gets the senator and that's what he did and voted in favor of the bill.
• 5:01
  Speaker 4: And you know, I know he had some concerns with it.
• 5:04
  Speaker 4: But I know he's certainly pleased to see that the Wim Paul provision be resolved in a way that's supportive of our men and women in law enforcement.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: And, to be fair, we understand, you know, whatever the legislative budget board is in Washington I don't know what the name of it is, but it's Congressional Budget Office.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: They said this thing was going to cost like I don't know $190 billion over a 10-year period, so $20 billion a year, and I understand that's a lot of money unless you're the federal government, and then it's really not.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: But my argument to you was okay.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: But what we've been doing up until now is making people who have legitimately contributed to this system all along, make them take a lower annuity than what they should be receiving because of mistakes that other people have been making over the last five decades.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: And why don't we make it right by them and put that just that much more pressure on the folks in Congress to get their act together and fix the problem?
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: And we understand there's still a lot of problems to be fixed, not only with social security, but with the budget Clint was talking a few minutes ago about.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: We might yet be staring at a government shutdown in a couple of months because we still got to get a.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: You know there's a continuing resolution going on right now because we still got to get a.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: You know there's a continuing resolution going on right now.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: You want to start in now.
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I, along with what Kevin said, I'll mirror it.
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: There was some votes that came in at the last minute that were game changers, Some no's early on that became yeses and changed the tide of how this thing went, and it was huge.
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: So I mirror what Kevin said.
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: One thing I'd like to I think is important at the beginning.
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: I've seen a lot of rhetoric on social media of misunderstanding of what the windfall elimination and the government pension offset what this is going to do.
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: A lot of people think that someone that has never paid a penny into social security by this passing is going to do.
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: A lot of people think that someone that has never paid a penny into social security by this passing is going to suddenly start receiving a huge check every month and that's simply not the case.
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: So I want to be really sure before we dive into the weeds for anybody listening.
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: This does not mean someone that has never paid a penny suddenly starts getting $1,500 a month check from something they've never paid into and have no skin in the game on, and I hope that helps some really initial confusion that I've seen on social media regarding it.
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's important to understand that you have to be fully qualified to receive Social Security benefits for this to impact you at all.
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: The unfair practice that has been going on under windfall elimination for all these decades has been and, by the way, it may be helpful to point out when Social Security was first created, it didn't apply to government employees.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: It didn't apply to national or state or local government entities.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: It only applied to private sector employers.
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: So when they finally did decide to start including public sector employees, there was a debate about the fact that in the meantime, a lot of states and local jurisdictions had created their own pension systems so that they could compete in the marketplace to attract and retain qualified personnel by having pensions.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: That's how the Texas municipal retirement system was created.
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: It was how the employee's retirement system was created.
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: It's how the teacher's retirement system was created.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: So then when Social Security decided, okay, we're going to let, sorry.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: When the federal government decided, we're going to let local governmental entities put their employees into this, Then they said well, wait a minute.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: We shouldn't allow that.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: We shouldn't have the government paying into two different retirement systems for government employees.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: So if they've opted out of social security, we're going to penalize the employees later on when they actually start trying to draw their retirement, and that's how all this stuff got started.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: And then the government pension offset has to do with spouses of government employees who otherwise didn't pay into Social Security or didn't pay in fully to Social Security.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: But you have to have 40 reportable quarters to qualify, no matter what.
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: So that's a key element here.
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: Layman's terms for folks that may be confused on it.
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: If Kevin was a civilian in his entire career and retired, and for instance, he's getting $1,800 a month I worked in law enforcement, retired and then had a civilian job where I earned my quarters I would be penalized for having a government job and would get a reduced amount.
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: This affects but only if your government job had actually opted out of social security.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, or any of your government jobs.
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: The example that I like to use and I'm sorry to interrupt you, but the one that I like to use is let's say you got somebody who worked in law enforcement, but they worked for an entity.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: Let's say they worked for the Baytown Police Department, for example, since I'm kind of familiar with them, and they spent 25 years there and contributed into social security for all 25 years there and contributed into Social Security for all 25 years.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: And then they retire from that job and they take a job with the Goose Creek ISD Police Department.
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: Well, goose Creek ISD is part of a school district that has opted out of Social Security.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: So now this individual works, let's say, three years there, they're going to be subject to the windfall elimination because part of their career they worked for an employer that opted out of social security.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: That was what was so blatantly unfair about WIP.
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: It's primarily police officers, firefighters, letter carriers, teachers.
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: There's a specific group is another confusion that I think people are having over who this affects.
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: The large portion of the windfall elimination portion is government workers being police officers, firefighters, letter carriers, teachers, gpo, the government pension offset.
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: Although it may seem similar to some, it affects surviving spouses.
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: Kevin, you want to kind of delineate how that's a little different than the windfall I got to tell you.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: I don't think I still completely understand exactly what GPO, but I got a whole lot better understanding of it just the last week or two.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: But the government pension offset is actually about if you are married to somebody who is a Social Security participant and then they retire and and then you retire and then you try to draw on their Social Security.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: You cannot.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: If they opted, if if they were part of a government pension that opted out of security it was you know, did both then the spouse is has not, up until now has not been eligible to receive benefits from that spouse's account, and maybe matt can give you a little better, a clearer explanation of it than that.
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it could work both ways, right.
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: So if you were a spouse like say, you were a teacher and your spouse was a police officer or just someone that qualified for social security and you were a teacher that did not and then you both retire and and your spouse is getting their pension and their social security and you're also getting your pension while your spouse dies.
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: All of a sudden, you lose his social security because because you did not qualify for social security, because you also because you because you were a retiring teacher, and so it.
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: It really it often, and, and, and you know, what if the teacher?
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: what if the teacher dies first and the police officer?
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: Does the police officer also now lose?
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: Or the police officer just couldn't draw on this on the on the teacher's social security account right?
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: That's right?
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right, and so it really.
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: It affected the surviving spouse of the of the non of the non social security recipient.
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: That's who it affected the most because receiving social security and a pension, another one only receiving a pension, so you had three pensions between the two of them Then, and then one dies, or the one that's receiving Social Security dies and the one left loses the Social Security altogether.
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: The widow or the widower loses the Social Security for their household altogether.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: Just for the sake of clarity, let's say that I'll take Tyler Owen as an example and I'm going to change up his lifestyle.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: Tyler Owen is the primary breadwinner for his family.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: He worked in law enforcement his entire career.
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: He contributes to Social Security.
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: He contributes to a public sector pension, but he spent part of his career working for an employer that opted out of Social Security.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: So let's say he spent half his career working for an employer that opted out of Social Security.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: Okay, so let's say he spent half his career working contributing to Social Security, half his career not.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: But his wife stayed home and raised the kids.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: His wife was a stay-at-home mom, so she doesn't have a pension.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: She's got very limited Social Security benefits.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: Now, supposedly, when they both retire, if Tyler predeceases her, she is entitled to either her Social Security benefit or one half of it, right?
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: One half of his.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: But if he didn't contribute part of the time, does she lose that altogether?
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: Yes, she could lose it altogether, right.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: Okay, so there's the blatant unfairness.
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: She could get her own Social Security If she had a little piddly amount that she worked somehow on the side.
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: She won't lose her own right.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: But if half of his was substantially more, she's not eligible for that.
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: That's right, it was horribly unfair to widows, especially in that situation.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: Okay, all right.
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: Especially in that circumstance.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: So hopefully, Clint, do you think that does a?
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: better job of laying out, yeah, yeah, ultimately, a spouse is penalized, uh, for being married to someone because of the profession they chose.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: Ultimately, and remember all these rules and decisions and everything were made way back in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: The vast majority of people working today, retiring today, had no idea any of this went on.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: So and we were talking a little while ago, matt, if I work my whole career in government service, whatever it was, I've been looking at my social security statement online in anticipation of retirement and it's been telling me okay, if you retire on this date, this is what your monthly annuity is going to be.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: Nobody was going to tell me about this windfall elimination or the government pension offset until the day I actually went and filed for my Social Security benefit and then they were going to tell me that number is not right.
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: Right, that's exactly what happened.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: And then they would give me some Right.
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: If you went and asked questions right if you, if you had the forethought to make certain, then maybe you were able to find out.
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: But they're they surely?
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: They certainly never went out of their way to say hey, by the way, you need to know that this exists.
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: You need to ask questions.
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: Never, never.
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: So the only way any of these folks know about this is if their association, their union, their lodge has been trying to educate them about this all this time.
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: Or their financial advisor.
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: That's right, they would come to us we would do analysis.
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: Good point If they didn't reach out we're doing a retirement analysis for somebody and we're waking them up to the windfall provision and they have no idea.
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: Now I would say in the last five to seven years everybody's done a really good job.
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: There's been a lot of awareness.
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: But when I started doing this 15 to 20 years ago, I would more often run into people that had no idea that this existed.
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: But in the last five to seven years there's been a real awareness.
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: Maybe that's why it got reversed right, because that awareness people started waking up to it and so you had younger people that started really getting more vocal about it.
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: Maybe that's why there was a change.
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: You know what and you raise a good point and I want to make sure we point this out as well why there was a change.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: You know what and you raise a good point and I want to make sure we point this out as well, because a lot of people talk about why is TMPA so involved in FOP?
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: What is in it for us to be involved in FOP?
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: And I think this is a prime example.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: Fop was front and center on this thing and, like I say I mentioned, tmpa has been pushing it for at least 30 years that I know of that.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: I've been involved, but FOP is the voice at the national level when it comes to speaking on behalf of law enforcement, and I don't like you.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure why it got momentum this time, that it didn't, and I'm sure that Tyler and Clint will both tell you.
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: I predicted it was going to fail yet again.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: You know there's a lot of folks trying to claim credit for this.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: Tyler and Clint will both tell you I predicted it was going to fail yet again.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of folks trying to claim credit for this.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: John Kennedy had a very famous quote when he said he said you know, success has a thousand fathers.
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: But failure is an orphan.
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: And as long as this thing wasn't passing, people were complaining, and complaining and complaining.
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: Why haven't y'all done anything?
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: Why haven't y'all done anything?
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: And now all of a sudden, everybody in their dog is claiming credit for it.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: That is not the case with FOP.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: Fop worked diligently, tirelessly on this thing.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: They constantly badgered us at the local and state level to stay in touch with our constantly badgered us at the local and state level to stay in touch with our congressional, you know, delegation.
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: And so I just think it's very important that Pat Yost and the folks with National FOP get plenty of credit for working so hard on this.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: Like I say, I was convinced it was not going to happen yet again, because the folks in Congress, they can find a billion ways to kill a bill, but passing one is so, so difficult, so good on them that you know, finally the perfect storm came together, but FOP was certainly the voice for law enforcement in this whole thing was certainly the voice for law enforcement in this whole thing.
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was great to watch.
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: We were in DC for the rally where Senate majority at the time Leader Schumer, came and spoke and there was a select few leaders that were asked to speak at that National President, Pat Yost, Mr Kelly, the president of the IAFF and Teachers Union and Letter Carrier Union, that was it.
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: Those were the people identified as the actual leaders in their field that were asked to speak.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: Right, and I get it.
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: We're not here talking about the other professions or the other groups, but if you look at the photograph of the signing ceremony from yesterday, there's one law enforcement group represented in that picture Absolutely, pat Yost from FOP.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: So there's a reason for that.
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and I think what helped the momentum as this thing started to snowball a little bit, president Yost and Jim Pascoe were invited to Mar-a-Lago and went down and had a direct meeting with President-elect Trump who said he supports it, and I think President Trump tweeting out his support, I think may have helped convert some of the no's to yes's.
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: So, like to your point, it was really a perfect storm.
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: There was a lot of hard work, blood, sweat and tears and time put into it and I think getting it across the finish line, with some timing issues, fell in at the right time.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: And, by the way, I don't know that we can be too terribly mad at the people who voted against it.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: I understand that they're trying to finally get control of the federal budget, trying to quit growing our national debt, and anything that increases the deficit is a bad thing in their books.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: My argument that I made to Colin, that I asked him to relay to Senator Cornyn, was just simply this then put the pressure on yourselves, quit putting the pressure on the hardworking men and women of law enforcement and your government sector employees and screwing them over, and put yourselves on the clock.
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: You know Social Security is going to become insolvent in the next 15 years anyway.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: Who cares if you speed that up by nine or 10 minutes by passing this.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: Put the pressure on yourselves to fix the damn thing instead of kicking the can down the road, and I think enough folks finally saw the logic in that, and I think you're right.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: I think President Trump do we call him president-elect?
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: He's a past president.
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: He's entitled to be called a president anyway.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: So, anyway, I think his tweet probably did have a lot of impact, and I will tell you that when we were watching the actual vote on the cloture and I don't know if we want to get into this with our viewers, but why the hell you got to take nine votes to pass one bill.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: I will never understand.
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: But when they were voting on cloture and it came down to where the supposedly the time expired and they didn't have the votes, but they kept voting and it crept closer and closer, I was watching that.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: I was on the edge of my seat literally because I was like, wow, is this thing actually going to?
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: And then some of the votes that started coming in were extremely gratifying.
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: Yep, yeah, it's good to see the folks that often want to stand with us for a picture stood up and made very difficult decisions and put their money where their mouth is and did something to help us.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: So, Matt, what do our members need?
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: Is there anything that the current retirees or the soon-to retirees need to do differently now?
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: What's great about this is.
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: The simple answer to that question is no.
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: Nothing different needs to be done Now, as we were talking about before when we had the call.
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: Clint, you were mentioning that we don't really know when the timing is going to work out, when the retroactive check comes in from January 1, 2024.
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: We don't know when the upgrade is going to actually start coming in, whether as a retroactive payment or month-to-month payment, but from what I understand, it's just supposed to happen.
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: Now, this is the federal government we're talking about here, and rarely does something like that just happen.
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: But that is what is supposed to happen.
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: You're not supposed to have to apply for anything.
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: You shouldn't have to go and fill out anything.
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: It should just happen.
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: That's from what I understand.
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: Have y'all heard anything?
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: different.
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: That's my understanding as well.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, my understanding the lump sum thing is a little bit different from what I'd heard or read.
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: I had read something that said they might decide to do that in monthly payments over the first 12 months, but the lump sum thing might be a little more difficult.
• 25:05
  Speaker 5: From purely a personnel standpoint, hey, matt, I do have a question.
• 25:14
  Speaker 5: Some agencies that we service may not necessarily contribute to Social Security, and so you have an officer that works at, let's just say, one agency that doesn't contribute and then transfers over to another agency that does.
• 25:24
  Speaker 5: What are they looking at from that?
• 25:26
  Speaker 5: Because I'm sure we're going to get that question as well.
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so it was the same problem.
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: The same problem existed before with that, with the windfall provision.
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: It would have affected the same way, and so with this, that goes away.
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: I mean, really, the bottom line news about what's happened is that if you pay into social security, you're getting your full social security based upon what you paid and what your age is.
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: That's what.
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: That's what it means Now.
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: It doesn't matter who you work for, it doesn't matter what you do, it doesn't matter if you're a guy behind a desk like me, or if you're risking your life on the streets, which is just bizarre to me.
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: That that's who they would target to affect.
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: This stuff Should be, should have been the guy behind the desk, but it doesn't matter anymore.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: You paid in Social Security, you're getting your full fair amount.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: Well, let's make sure we're clear.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: What your benefit benefit is is based upon how much you and your employer or employers contributed over the lifetime of your working career.
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: So if you spent half of your career contributing social security, the other half not contributing social security, you're going to get probably half of what somebody would get if they had the same working lifetime and contributed the entire time.
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: Okay, which?
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: would be true for anybody.
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: It's just, yeah, they're not just as clint was saying.
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: You're not only all of a sudden going to have magic deposits that entered, you know, entered the system for matt mcclain or for whoever, for clint mcnair.
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: It's not going to happen, you know so it's going to be by how much you put in.
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: They also look, you know it's not the only methodology they use.
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: They also put in, you know, the last 10 years of your income.
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: There is a kind of a defined benefit aspect there.
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: But if you didn't put in for half your career, you're going to get half the amount that you could have got.
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: Right, and you get that full half amount, not just partial, not just a part of that half amount.
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: Right, and every year there's a maximum amount that you contribute off your salary, a maximum amount that you contribute towards Social Security.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: It's pretty high.
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: I think right now it's $160,000, $170,000.
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: You stop contributing to Social Security when you get to that number.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: If you were above that number for your entire career, your Social Security check could be bigger than somebody who spent their entire career and never got above making $100,000, for example.
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: So you know Saying that just as, a little aside, the sweet spot, it is actually a diminishing.
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: It's actually kind of an exponential curve of diminishing amount of how much it really benefits you beyond the person who makes the most out of Social Security.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: You can't use words like that with our men.
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: Okay, let me put it this way Simply put, if you made somewhere between $60,000 to $80,000 for your career, dollar for dollar, you're getting more out of Social Security than anyone who made more than that.
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: So the person who's contributing up to $160,000 of their income towards Social Security, they're actually getting proportionately less.
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: Right, because they're paying.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: I'm included in this Paying for other people.
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: It's a big Ponzi scheme.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: We're all clear on that.
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: So you make $100,000.
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: If you make between $50,000 and $100,000, you're getting your biggest bang for your buck out of Social Security.
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: Okay, fair enough, and it's an excellent point.
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: And, by the way, even at that, you're only getting about 1% return.
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: If all that money had gone into some other investment, you'd have gotten a whole lot bigger return on those monies than you would out of Social Security Again, not the point here, though.
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: I do think it's important though that moving forward and we were just talking about Day on the Hill is coming up there's still going to be work being done on Social Security.
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: We still need to be heavily involved in those conversations and we need to be pushing for the federal government to make sure that Social Security is, in fact, fully funded.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: Just don't do it on the backs of the hardworking men and women that have already been putting in their fair share.
• 29:15
  Speaker 5: Kevin.
• 29:16
  Speaker 5: I think it brings up a good point.
• 29:17
  Speaker 5: Maybe you and Clint can touch on this, on the importance of PAC, the importance of how to contribute, where to contribute and why situations like this you know they prevail because of PAC funds, sure.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: Well, no kidding.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: And that will get us back to talking about some of these folks that didn't vote with us on this thing, people that we have supported.
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: And you know, the way we express ourselves is not by calling them and telling them hey, we're really disappointed with you.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: The way we expressed ourselves is by not writing them a check out of our PAC fund to their campaign and perhaps writing checks to their opponents out of our PAC fund into the opponent's campaign.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: That's where a PAC fund becomes really important.
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: We cannot contribute corporate dollars, association dollars, your dues money to political campaigns.
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: That has to come from a PAC and PACs have to be funded completely by individual contributions, and that's why we push that so hard.
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: And how can they do that, clint?
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: You can jump online on our website.
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: In our magazine, quarterly magazine and in-service there are links, qr codes, that you can do that.
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: We would love to have you show up to conference and participate at our conference and be a part of signing up for PAC there.
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: Sometimes there's some special gifts for PACs, folks that contribute to PAC All kinds of ways to participate.
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: You can also come down for Ledge Day If you're passionate and want to come see how the sausage is made, um, come down on ledge day, be a part of this by the way, if you go online right now and increase your monthly payment to tmpa, you're paying 32 for full membership and you know coverage.
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: Go in there and add another two dollars to the pack.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: You know every single dollar helps.
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: If we could get $1 a month out of all 34,000 members, just think of what we could do.
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: All right, what else would you talk about, guys?
• 31:28
  Speaker 5: I think we've done a good job on this.
• 31:29
  Speaker 5: Matt, you want to go give a shameless plug to McLean's and then we'll wrap this thing up.
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: So, yeah, if you want to know how this affects you positively, just give us a holler because we can run a retirement analysis for you and things are going to look much different for you going forward than it would have in the past, when we would have had to have the whole conversation about windfall provision and we would have gone in, going in and doing the math and trying to figure it out ourselves Because, like you said, kevin, they never did it for you, so we would have to figure out the math of how that was going to affect you.
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: That no longer is the case.
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: So anyone that we've done an analysis for, which are thousands of people in the last few years, give us the call and we'll run some new numbers for you, because this changes things positively for you.
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: And that's 1-800-MAT-MACLAIN.
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: There we go.
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: No, that's good.
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: So our number is 1-800-204-6020.
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: And it won't just be me, right?
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: So remember we may have Chad and Daniel and Todd and my brother.
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: We all work together.
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: So, depending on the region, I'll make sure that we get you plugged in to, to, to where, to, wherever each rep is and and each advisor works, and we'll get that done All right.
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: Good and also get on our website and do a website submission at McLean Advisors.
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: Hey, we're on the subject of retirement really quick as a reminder out there.
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: A lot of people have to retire after January the 1st.
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: If you're looking at retirement, considering retirement, be sure all of your beneficiary information is up to date.
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: Just because at your agency you've updated your beneficiary information or your contact information does not mean that that populates to TCDRS TMRS your 401k, populates to TCDRS TMRS your 401k.
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: Be sure you have a will up to date.
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: Be sure your beneficiary is not three ex-wives ago.
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: A lot of people calling in at this time, right after the first year, about retirement.
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: Now's a great time to review all of your information and be sure all of that's up to date and current.
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: Clint, that's so important.
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: I cannot tell you how many times in a year we talk to somebody for the first time and we order their estimate from the TMRS.
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: And it's a third ex-wife, right, or it's their children and they didn't realize they hadn't put their wife on it and luckily we catch it before and we get them to change it.
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: But that has affected people before.
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we've had line of duty deaths.
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: We're trying to figure out exactly who the beneficiary is and how.
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: It's just ridiculous.
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: By the way, matt Chad, todd, if you're still listening, thank you very much for those seasonings.
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: You guys sent the Christmas gifts.
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, my wife really the Christmas gifts.
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that was.
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: My wife really really appreciated that.
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much.
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: By the way, guys, if y'all haven't picked yours up, they're at the office, they're at the reception desk.
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: So they sent some for everybody.
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: Guys, we hope everybody's New Year's off to a good start.
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: 800-848-2088.
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: If you need anything, you can jump online on the website.
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: Give us a call, holler at your field rep.
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: Call Kevin.
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: Everybody's got my cell phone number.
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: It's on my business card.
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: Clint drops it in fish bowls all over the state of Texas.
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: Bathrooms.
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: I drop it everywhere.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: Biggest thing is please be safe.
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: You need us, we're here.
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: No-transcript.