I didn't ask for it but someone at the Social Security Advisory Board (SSAB) was kind enough to put me on the mailing list for printed copies of their reports. I just got the printed copy of Filing for Social Security Disability Benefits: What Impact Does Professional Representation Have on the Process at the Initial Application Level. It's been available online for about three months. Forget the negligible merits of the report. Let's focus on the printing of the report. It's printed on paper that is almost as stiff and slick as the stock my firm uses for our business cards. I don't think I've ever seen a magazine printed on stock this thick. This makes the report so stiff it's a little difficult to even read it. It's slick paper too, slicker than my firm's business cards which are themselves printed on coated stock. At least the report isn't in full color but it does use two colors (black and brown). Even two color printing costs money. Printing like this takes time. That's why it took three months to print it. No one would think of printing such an ephemeral document in this way if they had any concern with cost. Don't blame the Social Security Administration. The SSAB has its own appropriation controlled by its deficit-hating Republican majority.
Oh, those evil and stupid deficit-hating Republicans vs. the good and wise deficit-loving Democrats. Yes, I am sure the selection of paper used in this report is part of a devious Republican plot because, after all, such is the punch line for your story. Who do you think has a better chance for bringing Social Security into the second half of the 21st century? For those of you who love the Democrat way, I hope you have a deficit-loving spouse to bring you full joy and happiness. But please do not go to your deficit-hating neighbor to feed and shelter you when the bill comes due.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous conservatroll trolls anonymously.
ReplyDeletePerhaps a better example of government waste is the SSAB itself. According to the bios on its own website, this seems to be a part time job for members, who have their own businesses to run.
ReplyDeleteBarbara Kennely is President of Barbara Kennelly Associates and is also a distinguished professor at Trinity University. Jagadeesh Gokhale is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute.
The best is Dorcas R. Hardy, President of DRHardy & Associates, a government relations and public policy firm serving a diverse portfolio of clients. Ms. Hardy is a Certified Senior Advisor and serves on the Board of Directors of Wright Investors Service Managed Funds, and First Coast Service Options of Florida.
What I didn’t know (and discovered by looking it up on FEDSDATACENTER.COM) is that Hardy and other board members receive a yearly government salary of $155,482. They formally meet once a month.
Not a bad gig for part-time work if you can get it. Hardy has served on the board since 2002. Talk about wallowing up at the government trough!
Hardy was Commissioner of SSA in the late 1980s. http://www.ssa.gov/history/hardy.html
ReplyDeleteThe very existence of the SSAB is a waste of $2 million.
ReplyDeleteDid you get a load of the full-color Medicare calendars for 2013--our FO got hundreds of them. The quality is equal to any calendars in a retail store, easily worth $10.00 each. Certainly hundreds of thousands have been produced, if not millions. Figure that out.
ReplyDeleteIf one were to list all the examples of government waste, the internet would likely crash. Suffice to say, the government wastes infathomable amounts of money every day.
ReplyDeleteWhile I don't mean to trivialize this waste, you all realize that all of this waste combined doesn't begin to touch what we spend on defense in like one week, right?
ReplyDeleteJust because it doesn't compare to other potential spending doesn't mean we shouldn't address the waste. We need to attack all wasteful spending and pare down spending in other areas. But to not go after the "small" amounts of wasteful spending while hoping to tackle a big ticket item, we miss the opportunity to START reductions.
ReplyDeleteyou really don't have a grasp on our government spending. Let's assume each major agency wastes a few tens of millions dollar each every year. and let's just assume there are 100 agencies. so a few billion each year wasted.
ReplyDeletewe spent $664.84 billion on military spending (doesn't even count all the spending on defense, intelligence, etc.) in FY 2011. So all that work to ferret out the few millions here and there would result in savings equivalent to no more than 3-5 days' worth of military spending.
you're insane to say the smart move is to start off small, wasting resources to track down small numbers when we could get a bigger savings by simply cutting military spending by less than 10%
Waste like buying everyone two computer monitors. One of which sits on my desk turned off.
ReplyDeleteI completely disagree! Having two monitors makes my job SO much easier. For example, I can ID someone on one screen and at the same time be retrieving the notice they have a question about on the other monitor. Or if I have to copy something from an internet claim into a mainframe claim, I can look at both at the same time. In my opinion, any CR who isn't using both monitors all day long is a dinosaur.
ReplyDeleteIt's hard to believe that anyone isn't using their second monitor. That's just plain dumb.
ReplyDeleteyeah, i got upset when i heard our new machines (running Windows 7) were only going to come with one (albeit significantly larger) monitor. we're keeping some of the old ones so we can still dual-screen it up.
ReplyDeleteAgreed. Two monitors is NECESSITY if you want to be as efficient as possible. I'm even now considering two monitors for my personal home computer, haha.
ReplyDelete"Two monitors is NECESSITY if you want to be as efficient as possible."
ReplyDeleteBS I worked the 800# and did BA work, and I never said I wish I had two monitors. I guess you never heard of Alt-Tab.
Small monitor is off and will remain off.
800# and BA?? I worked in FO--that explains a lot. 800# is about least competent component of SSA. 800# creates significant workload problems for FO's--ask anyone trying to decipher some of the macro'ed leads that are set up for claims--disasters par excellence.
ReplyDeleteSRs in FOs aren't the sharpest tools in the shed either. Like to have a dollar for every time one screwed up an SSN application for someone on a visa.
ReplyDeleteI did the 800# and BA work 15 years ago. The 800# was the worst job I had at SSA. Would rather pick up trash in the parking lot than do that job again.
Still say buying two monitors wasted money.