While most taxpayers aren’t paying attention, and government-employee unions cheer, Congress brings Social Security’s insolvency crisis six months closer.

While the Christmas tree government-funding bill has died as it deserved to, Congress is passing a terrible bill on a bipartisan basis that will add about $200 billion to the debt and hasten the insolvency of the Social Security trust fund.

The Social Security Fairness Act eliminates two provisions of the Social Security Act that apply to government employees. The first is the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP), which reduces old-age benefits for people with fewer than 30 years of employment covered by Social Security and who also receive a pension from their government job. The second is the Government Pension Offset (GPO), which reduces spousal and survivor’s benefits for those with government pensions.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, eliminating the WEP would increase monthly benefits for 2.1 million Social Security recipients, mostly retired government employees, by an average of $360 by the end of 2025. Eliminating the GPO would increase benefits for 380,000 spouses of retired government employees by $700 per month and increase benefits for 390,000 surviving spouses of deceased government employees by $1,190 per month.

All told, the CBO estimates the bill will add $195.65 billion to the national debt over the next ten years. It will also move the insolvency date of the Social Security trust fund, currently scheduled to arrive in 2033, six months earlier. When the Social Security trust fund runs out, beneficiaries will see automatic benefits cuts of around 25 percent under current law.

This bill to expand Social Security benefits for retired government employees and their spouses passed with overwhelming bipartisan support in the House, with 191 Democrats and 136 Republicans voting in favor. It has not yet passed the Senate, but will do so soon, as senators voted to end debate on Wednesday by 73–27. Twenty-four Republicans voted with almost every Democrat to advance the bill.

There is a legitimate problem with the way benefits are currently paid, as Rachel Greszler explained for the Economic Policy Innovation Center in November. The reason for the WEP and GPO is that, under Social Security’s benefit formula, government employees appeared to have lower incomes than they actually had because some of their pay is not covered by the Social Security system. Because benefits are supposed to replace more income for poorer people, government employees looked much poorer than they were and were receiving windfalls.

“When Congress passed the legislation to eliminate these windfall benefits—the Government Pension Offset (GPO) in 1977 and the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) in 1983—they lacked the data necessary to apply an accurate fix, so they implemented an imperfect one instead,” Greszler wrote. Now, the data are better, and a more targeted fix is possible.

The Social Security Fairness Act repeals the WEP and GPO, reverting to the original law. Representative Jodey Arrington (R., Texas) introduced the Equal Treatment of Public Servants Act, which would have fixed the actual problem with benefits calculation at roughly one-tenth the cost, $24 billion over ten years. Instead, Congress is passing the blowout spending version, to the applause of government-employee unions, while most taxpayers aren’t paying attention.