Eighteen years ago this weekend, Pennsylvania lost a powerful voice and the nation's elderly lost their most powerful Republican advocate. In the midst of economic chaos and as the White House and Congress consider additional ways to infuse life back into our economy and to atone for funding bonuses for mega-millionaires, Sen. H. John Heinz III likely would have turned the debate from further bailouts to a simple idea: Why don't we stop punishing elderly women for the sin of having worked for the government?

I invoke the late senator because, 18 years following his death, the story of our nation's older women sadly remains the same.

Years ago, our lawmakers wanted to make sure no one would get rich from government pensions. So they created the Government Pension Offset in the 1970s, followed by the Windfall Elimination Provision in the 1980s.

What may have seemed like a good idea at the time has gone horribly awry. Instead of preventing government retirees from getting rich, these measures instead have driven many older Americans into poverty. The majority of those affected are women.

The GPO reduces or eliminates the Social Security survivor benefit for government workers. The cut amounts to two-thirds of the retiree's government pension.

Here's an example:

Rose, a government employee, retired with a $600 monthly pension. Her husband Richard worked in the private sector. He retired with a $1,000 monthly Social Security benefit. Richard died before Rose. Instead of receiving the $500 survivor benefit from Social Security that most spouses would get, Rose gets just $100. The GPO reduced her survivor benefit by $400.

What if Rose worked in the private sector earning the same income? She would be entitled to full survivor Social Security benefits. Instead, her reward for a lifetime of public service and outliving her husband is a ruthless cut in her Social Security.

Victims of the GPO are largely people like Rose who retired as government workers and whose spouses worked in the private sector. Rose should have retired with pension income of $1,100 a month. Instead, courtesy of our desire to keep her from getting rich at our expense, she must find a way to survive on $700 a month.

Like the GPO, the Windfall Elimination Provision also affects government retirees who have earned pensions. WEP cuts their Social Security benefits unless they also worked at least 30 years in the private sector. In contrast, private-sector workers get full Social Security benefits after 10 years of work. A government worker and a private-sector worker can have the exact same Social Security earning history and pension benefits, yet the government retiree's Social Security benefit is lower.

Again, women are disproportionately affected. Because they remain our society's primary caregivers, women often take years away from the workforce to raise children or tend to ailing parents. Women, on average, also earn less than men and live longer. As a result, they tend to be more dependent on Social Security for their retirement income. Guess who this "windfall" provision targets?

Precisely these women.

It's time to end these insidious policies. Economic survival is not simply for banks and failed businesses. Rose and women like her are real people with real needs. They are not asking for huge, taxpayer-funded bonuses like those that our government made possible for some of the executives who tanked our economy. These women are just asking for the same benefit the rest of us get: a fair deal from Social Security.

The Roses of our country don't have lobbyists or congressional deal cutters. They just have simple fairness on their side, and those of us who still believe fairness is worth fighting for.

We remember Sen. Heinz today as we witness the spectacle of the government spending billions in taxpayer dollars bailing out bankrupt companies and lining the pockets of overcompensated executives. As a wealthy American himself, the senator would have simply but eloquently reminded his colleagues to focus on eliminating the risk of poverty this same government has created.

We need legislators in the mold of Sen. Heinz who are willing to ask, "What about them?" Americans caught in the quagmire of these unfair policies need help, and they need it now.