re: SS and retirement benefits tax question

She only gets the pension. RR workers get a pension in lieu of paying into and getting SS. As of now my buddy can only get RR pension even though he worked for 18 years and paid into the SS system, which does not factor into his RR pension. Congress is putting through a bill which would allow him to collect for SS as well but at this time he would lose all of it. A crap deal for sure.