Trying To Shift The Blame

From the Associated Press:

Social Security efforts to trim a disability claims backlog haven't done enough to halt personal ordeals for disabled people awaiting government help, a Senate oversight committee told the head of the agency Monday.

For people in need and awaiting claims, "Your heart goes out to them," U.S. Sen. George Voinovich, Republican of Ohio, said at a Senate subcommittee field hearing on disability claim backlogs of two years or more.

If Voinovich's party has its way on appropriations, expect these backlogs to grow over the next two years. That is not what Voinovich or his party really want but that would be the inevitable effect if Social Security's appropriations are cut back to 2008 levels. That is what the Republican Party ran on in the last election.

Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue, for his part, testified at the hearing that:

We have been chronically underfunded for 15 straight years, beginning in the early 1990s ... [I]t was a bipartisan thing. It didn't matter the party of the president or the party of Congress, our administrative funding was just not as sexy as a lot of other things that Congress wants to spend money for.

Baloney. Republicans were in control of either the White House or Congress for that entire time period until the last two years. Democrats fought for higher administrative budgets for Social Security for the entire time period. They were consistently blocked by Republicans until the last two years. It has only been in the last two years that Social Security has made any real progress on its backlogs. Republican control of the House of Representatives will allow Republicans to once again block adequate appropriations for Social Security.