I have gotten many comments wondering why I keep focusing upon the closure or threatened closure of a few small Social Security field offices. I do not know if Michael Astrue was trying to surreptitiously put pressure on Congress to increase his agency's budget by threatening to close Social Security field offices at the same time as he stuck closely to the Bush Administration party line of opposing any increase in the Social Security administrative budget, but that was clearly the effect. Here is an excerpt from the Carlsbad, NM Current Argus on two Senators' motivation for trying to increase Social Security's budget:[Senator] Bingaman also added an amendment to the FY2008 Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Appropriations Bill calling for a $150 million increase in Social Security administration.
"So they can deal with the enormous backlog of cases that are pending there in people applying for disability benefits," Bingaman told the Senate. "The average wait is 523 days now. If a person filed today for a hearing in Social Security, they would expect to get that hearing in June of 2009. That is unacceptable. We need to do better."
Maria Najera, a spokeswoman for Bingaman's office, said the senator is concerned with communities like Carlsbad.
"We want to use that money to fix problems like in Carlsbad where they are having staff problems," Najera said. Carlsbad officials are presently fighting to keep the Social Security Administration office here open, and the office has been understaffed for several years.
Domenici supported Bingaman's amendment.
"For citizens who are on disability to have to wait two years on an appeal, as the Senator said, is unacceptable," Domenici told the Senate. "The money this is providing will take care of that."
Senator Domenici should realize that very few of the people waiting for hearings are "on disability". These are people who have already been determined as "not disabled" at two levels (initial and reconsideration) by trained disability examiners.
ReplyDeleteAstrue is focusing on the possible closure of local field offices because he has quickly realized the sad fact that the only way to get any Congressional attention on SSA is to threaten to close the local FO in a member's district. Unfortunately, this is nothing new in SSA's dealings with Congress...
ReplyDeleteGo ahead an close them. With over a 1000 SSA offices across the U.S., I'm sure a few can be closed.
ReplyDeleteIt's just like the BS going on in Maryland now, if government can't rape the public with more taxes, Gov says he will have to close Parks and State Police barracks, like nothing else can be cut. Have to threaten to cut the most visible things to get attention and I say the same with those, shut'em down.
How far in debt does the government have to get before spending is reduced or at least the rate of growth is reduced.