From a Request for Information posted by the Social Security Administration:
SSA is looking for an expert contractor with experience in scheduling cases in a judicial environment. We are interested in an Automated Scheduling tool that may be of value to any part of the SSA’s Intelligent Disability effort, whether it’s a front-end solution, back-end solution, or combination of both. Please provide enough documentation as to how you would address the needs described below to permit an initial assessment.
This seems to be part of the theory that any amount of money can be spent on contractors in the hope that they can somehow improve service at Social Security, but hiring additional federal employees to actually get the work done is out of the question. The history of the last 7 years or so suggests that this theory does not work. In fact, I would say that this theory is one of the major reasons for the backlogs at Social Security. We are to the point now that Social Security is receiving increases in its operating budget that are well above the rate of inflation, yet the agency is unable to add badly needed personnel, because of all the money being paid to contractors.
3 comments:
I worked at SSA for over 31 years. It saddens me to see what the Republican mindset of private is always better than public has done to SSA and other agencies. There seems to be an idea among Republicans that someone must make a profit on EVERY human activity. It is the same mindset that makes us the only developed nation in which health insurance companies are allowed to put profit ahead of the public good and people can be forced into bankruptcy because they had the bad fortune to become sick or injured.
AFGE has been saying this for years now, i.e., contracting out does NOT work, and it HURTS federal employees, the very resource that does the best job for the money.
The ultimate irony here is, that the dismantling of SSA is actually not what I, as a conservative Republican, would support. The first and most basic tenet of conservatism is to prevent waste. By not having enough skilled, trained career employees to administer the programs at SSA, waste is out of control. The capitalist dogma of spending money to make money fits--more employees would save money by preventing waste, fraud and abuse.
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