House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D-WI) told human services advocates that the FY 2011 appropriations bill for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services and Education could be cut by 2.3 percent. The escalating budget deficit and election year politics will make it extremely difficult to meet rising human service needs.
May 19, 2010
Budget Trouble Brewing
From the Capitol Insider, a publication of the Disability Policy Collaboration:
Social Security's administrative budget is part of the Labor-HHS appropriations bill.
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7 comments:
Now is this a real cut or a "Washington Cut" of the proposed increase?
What does anyone expect, given the deficits we're running? Frankly, there's always been room for cuts in SSA, starting with Central Office as well as closing or consolidating redundant and unproductive field offices and resident stations. Hire staff and reduce overhead; those should be the objectives, with emphases on direct public service and reducing the disability claim and appeals backlogs.
If congress mandated alj's salary cuts of 50%,at least 1 million dollars would be found. If congress further mandated all $100,000 or more employees received a 50% salary cut,more money would be found.
And if Congress made Federal employees work for nothing, even more money could be "found." I will just leave it at that. Sigh.
And if ODAR utilized its video capability for training, it stands to reason they'd save lots of money. It's odd that claimants are pushed to submit to video hearings but ODAR insists its personnel personally attend update/indoctrination/training.
any other, good, legitimate suggestions for cutting costs in ssa offices?
The purpose of SSA is to pay benefits, i.e. spend money. To do its function, it needs people. To reduce agency costs, the only answer is to reduce spending by reducing numbers of claims, by eliminating classes of benefits. So, for example, no SSI(or any disability benefits) for anyone under age 30. No spouse's benefits. No auxiliary(life) benefits. No surviving child's benefits after age 16 unless full-time student. The list could go on. Now, all you need is 51 percent of Congress with enough guts to do it. Short of that, enough with the gimmicky employee pay cut scenarios.
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