U.S. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D- Mont., criticized the Social Security Administration for mistakenly sending $250 economic stimulus payments to each of 1,700 prison inmates.According to media reports, SSA officials did not respond to inquiries from prison employees who processed the checks. Baucus, in a statement Tuesday, called the reports "troubling."
"SSA should issue a full report on this failure to respond to these requests in a timely manner. We made a concentrated effort to protect American taxpayers in crafting recovery legislation, and many correctional officials were doing their part to prevent an abuse of taxpayer funds," said Baucus.
Sep 1, 2009
Baucus On Stimulus Checks To Prisoners
From Dow Jones Newswires:
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5 comments:
So SSA did not respond "timely'--maybe because there is no one to process that workload?-- along with many,many others. If Baucus thinks that is a priority, he can go to Vermont with Grassley and get married, because they are a perfect couple.This is just such a huge joke--both parties clearly at fault in the collapse of Social Security.
Oh, just stuff a sock in it, Baucus! Goes to show you don't have to know anything to get elected to the Senate. You want SSA to everything, super fast, every time? Then, give us an LAE that's up to the job! Or is you arm broken? Snark and grrrr. Sorry. NO
Maybe NO had a little too much to drink again, or perhaps she can explain more clearly why it is not appropriate to criticize SSA for not taking action to avoid incorrect payments when they were told by prison officials that the payments were incorrect. Additional funding is not the solution for every stupid error made at SSA.
Okay, let me repeat verrry slowly--there--is--no--staff--to--do--the--work. In my office, there is a section of ten cubicles, each of which used to have an employee. Now there are four employees. the remaining cubicles are not empty--they are piled with cases not getting done because there is no one to do them, and no anticipated hiring to deal with them. Is that clear enough?
I am all for more employees, and I don't doubt that your office is understaffed, but Baucus is simply asking for an investigation to see what happened. I suspect that it had nothing to do with local office understaffing, but we will see after the OIG report is issued.
In case you aren't aware of how many employees SSA has, the number is going up as budgets have been increasing. The fact that hires are all going to the least productive parts of SSA is another matter.
Huge federal staffing increase planned in 2010:
http://www.federaltimes.com/index.php?S=4085993
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