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THE MALDEN ADVOCATE–Friday, January 10, 2025 Page 19 MUSINGS | FROM PAGE 7 thing” to want to play for M.H.S. “Spring hoop leagues, Saturday afternoon games, and the crew that played there before me; Billy Hanifan, Paul Abare, Art Dunlea, and even (but don’t tell them) Cliff Cioffi, (the late) Gary Campsmith, and George Miller – plus many, many others.” My note...you were the best, Danny. Nobody could cover you. Not even Cliff Cioffi! Insert smiley face. Hopefully, we’ll see you soon, my friend (maybe at the biggest shindig and the biggest social event of 2025, Joe Levine’s milestone birthday party?). Maldonia, if you don’t get an invite, don’t feel bad, the hall can hold only SO many people. LOL. I hang my head in embarrassment as Puggo was spot on a couple weeks back when he wrote “Danny and I would have CONCERT | FROM PAGE 10 Zhou. Bass: Aryan Adhikari, Adrian Aguilar, Christopher Arruda-Ciulla, Kail Boswell, Thomas Cao, Carmine Capachietti, Matt Jason Chan (Section Leader), Francis Doza, Liam Gallagher, Kevin Lin, Mike Nchuta. *** MADRIGAL SINGERS Soprano 1: Ashlyn Cullity, Natasha Ferraz, Jefferyi Pagulong. Soprano 2: Natalie Keating, Erica Littlejohn, Kimberlee Smith. Alto: Marie Cheng, Remi Santos, Katelynn Vo. *** MIXED CHORUS Soprano: Isabella Arevalo, Ruth Choiseul, Saphirha Decrushed” the group of players that I had mentioned. Puggo was an unstoppable force back in the 1970s. His height combined with a serious skill set made travelling to Harvard Street Park to play his crew always fun and competitive – but extremely frustrating trying to get a shot off against the likes of Puggo, his cousin Dane, George “Tommy” Hoffman, Kenny Fulgham and Doug Rogers. Puggo went on to star at Tufts in Medford and (I believe) played alongside Gail Huff’s husband, Scott Brown. Danny and Puggo weren’t the only ones making a splash at Malden Catholic in 1974. Remember the ’74 hockey team winning the state championship?! Mike Fidler, Buddy Goodwin and Jack and George Hughes making the 1st Team Catholic Conference All-Star Team! M.C. was stacked with stud athletes in the 1970s peine, Anya Grzegorzewski, Bri Hanks, Mackenzie Hartin, Edythe Howse, Schekina Laroche, Alexis Lee, Valeria Licona Cruz, Marisa Mantilla, Aleksandra Matzkin, Elmeille Memeus, Ruby Neicth Forbes, Lam Nguyen, Sophia Nguyen-Guerrero, Nelcy Perez, Allela Perryman, Alson Ponce Toapanta, Sofia Rivera. Alto: Betelinem Asth, Sara Baker, Crystal Chen, Janice Chen, Gigi DeMarco-Valdes, Irie Debel, Anna Desrosiers, Yushan Du, Sabrina Dyl, Chrissy Guillaume, Linnea Heining, Quilin Jiang, Leo Le, Nyla Ligon-Chambers, Esther Mei Noche, Ayanna Mesidor, Minty Nguyen, Evelyn Pham, Beatel Tesfaye, Janbi Thapa, Emma Yu. Baritone: Guilherme Baroneque, Wilson Chen, Raphael Kinuthia, Juninho Victor. Like us on Facebook advocate newspaper Facebook.com/ Advocate.news.ma (hello, Mark Cannon!)! But 1974 might have been the best. And, of course, Malden was represented! Steve Harvey, Mike & Steve Hooper, Jimmy Rooney (a teammate of mine on the Twins in Little League), Buddy Lawler (?) and HOF goalie (retired Malden firefighter) Dave “Brother of Flash & Mike” Norton. One final MC shoutout: Who can forget this stand-up guy, Medford’s own Caesar Angiulo? Just for the record, let me give you my early ’70s Maldonia hoop all-star five; your mileage may vary, and you are more than welcome to share your opinion (agree or disagree). My top five from 50 years back: Danny, Harold, John “Stana” Stanacek, Mark “Bunza” Burns and Bruce Vining (Bert Cioffi coming off the bench). Discuss amongst yourselves. Postscript: Just for the record, you may not agree with every “letter to the editor” that Kevin submits, but there is absolutely nobody in these here five square miles who loves Malden as much as he does. Well, maybe not as much as the Lucey family, but very, very close second in line. LOL. —Peter is a longtime Malden resident and a regular contributor to The Malden Advocate. He can be reached at PeteL39@aol.com for comments, compliments or criticisms. WINDFALL ELIMINATION PROVISION REPEAL T he United States Senate this past December passed H.R. 82, The Social Security Fairness Act of 2023 with a vote of 76 in favor and 20 not in favor. This landmark legislation repeals the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and the Government Pension Offset (GPO). Both the WEP and the GPO have served to greatly reduce Social Security benefits for public servant retirees who had worked as a firefighter, teacher, police officer, or in any other city or state employment position. This bill was previously approved by the House of Representatives on November 12, 2024 by a 32775 margin. President Biden signed this legislation into law on Sunday, January 5, 2025. These public service positions are not covered by Social Security. The WEP was first introduced in 1983 during the Reagan administration resulting in a significant reduction of monthly Social Security retirement benefits for those retirees who did contribute to Social Security during a portion of their working years but who worked most of their career in the state public sector thereby becoming eligible for a state pension upon retirement. The GPO resulted in a significant reduction in a surviving spouse’s Social Security retirement benefits as a result of the predeceased spouse having worked in the public sector thereby receiving a state pension. The surviving spouse would be collecting the deceased spouse’s state pension under a joint and survivor election option made by the deceased spouse. The predeceased spouse would have settled for a lesser monthly retirement benefit knowing that his or her surviving spouse would be entitled to collect that state pension for the remainder of his or her life. What this new legislation essentially means is that state workers will be entitled to 100% of their Social Security retirement benefits based upon their work history in the private sector and contributions to the Social Security system. This also means that your surviving spouse will receive 100% of your Social Security monthly benefit upon your death, regardless of whether or not your surviving spouse is also receiving a state retirement benefit either under her own state retirement benefit or her spouse’s state retirement benefit. The marriage must have lasted at least 10 years to collect under a predeceased spouse’s work history. The surviving spouse will of course receive the higher Social Security monthly benefit based either upon her own work history or her spouse’s work history. Retirees will also receive retroactive payments for benefits lost after December 31, 2023. There could be as many as 2.5million retirees that have been affected by the WEP and the GPO acts. Massachusetts is one of the states where state workers have been significantly impacted. The expected cost to the federal government by eliminating the WEP and the GPO legislation approximates $200billion over the next decade. The impact on the health of the Social Security Trust Fund would be an acceleration of the time in which the fund would be depleted. Congress will undoubtedly either cut other benefit programs, foreign aid, contributions to global causes such as World Health Organization, etc., or increase payroll taxes, in order to sustain the Social Security Trust Fund for future retirees. I don’t see our federal government ever jeopardizing Social Security benefits for our seniors. Far too many Americans depend upon those benefits just to meet their minimum monthly expenses. Joseph D. Cataldo is an estate planning/elder law attorney, Certified Public Accountant, Certified Financial Planner, AICPA Personal Financial Specialist and holds a master’s degree in taxation.

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