BATON ROUGE, La. (BRPROUD) -- The clock is ticking for the final days of this Congress and some members of Louisiana’s delegation are trying to push through the Social Security Fairness Act. The bill aims to do away with the Windfall Elimination Provision and Government Pension Offset that deducts funds from some retiree’s payments. This impacts thousands of people in Louisiana who have worked as teachers, firefighters, law enforcement and in other public service professions. “We have serious legislation that will help millions of Americans that the House overwhelmingly passed in mid-November, sent it to the Senate, and it's waiting for a vote,” Sen. Bill Cassidy said on the Senate floor this week. With just weeks left in Congress before a major change in leadership in Washington, there are concerns it will end up on the cutting room floor again as it has for the last 40 years. The two provisions were put into law in the 1970s as a way to prevent overpaying people who may be getting a pension from one job as well as payments from Social Security for working public service jobs for part of their careers. Trump nominees visit senators on Capitol Hill “My firefighters, police officers and teachers in Louisiana have a second job or a second career or get married. They're being unfairly punished, receiving far less from Social Security than if they had never worked in public service at all,” Cassidy said in his speech. The bill had wide bipartisan support in the House and is one of the most co-sponsored bills this Congress.  There are an estimated 2,800,000 people impacted across the country by these two programs. Congressman Garret Graves and other members of the Louisiana delegation have been advocating for the act to be passed as a stand-alone bill, or “clean bill,” and not attached to anything else. “What we've been able to do throughout this entire process in getting this bill passed is providing transparency, putting sunshine on it, making people sort of vote where their words have been for months or years,” Graves said. “That has been the secret sauce, that has been the strategy, the success. And to see Senator Schumer now come in and say that, ‘Oh, we need to do this as part of a year-end negotiation behind closed doors.’ In my opinion, that is an intent to kill this bill.” Cassidy said he would support the bill if it is attached in its original form. Graves believes not passing it as a clean bill could lead to backroom deals to kill it or water it down. Some critics of the bill say it would speed up how fast Social Security goes insolvent, which is anticipated in the next 10 years. The Congressional Budget Office estimated this bill would cost about $190 billion over a decade. Judge closes Hunter Biden gun case after presidential pardon  Graves said the bill is only prospective, so it won’t require payments looking backward. He also believes that it has been unfairly propping up the program for years. “Retirees and folks that are in public service have paid for this. They have paid their dues…This has been paid for for decades. Our calculations are that the Social Security trust fund has benefited to the tune of $600-700 billion,” Graves said. As lawmakers head back to Washington D.C. to complete their business for the year, the delegation is continuing to set up meetings with leadership to push to get a vote in the Senate. Congress also has less than three weeks to pass a government funding bill to prevent a shutdown. Latest News Construction to begin for youth center in Baton Rouge, expected to open next summer Louisiana officials voice litter concerns at Regional Litter Summit Prosecutors: DC police officer’s talk with Proud Boys leader grew secretive as arrest neared Trump’s DEA nominee withdraws from consideration just days after being picked U.S. says it’s monitoring developments in South Korea