Excerpt From Written Statement Of Marty Ford

A very short excerpt from a much longer written statement by Marty Ford, Co-Chair of the Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities (CCD) Social Security Task Force, a large and important umbrella group representing many non-profits concerned with helping the disabled.

In addition, CCD also urges Congress to separate SSA’s LAE budget authority from the Section 302(a) and (b) allocations for discretionary spending. The size of SSA’s LAE is driven by the number of administrative functions it conducts to serve beneficiaries and applicants. Congress should remove SSA’s administrative functions from the discretionary budget that supports other important programs. The LAE would still be subject to the annual appropriations process and Congressional oversight.

I present this excerpt since I think this seemingly technical issue is of huge importance. There is likely to be a serious effort to remove Social Security from the budget or at least to remove it from the sort of budget limitations that apply to other agencies.