The House of Representatives (HR) has passed its version of a Continuing Resolution (CR) that would keep the government functioning for the rest of the fiscal year, albeit with the across the board sequestration cuts in place. The bill clearly exempts from the sequestration money appropriated for Social Security for continuing disability reviews and SSI redeterminations. (page 268). It also includes this language (page 231):
Of the amount made available by section 1101 for ‘‘Social Security Administration, Limitation on Administrative Expenses’’, $483,484,000 is additional new budget authority specified for purposes of subsection 251(b)(2)(B) of the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985.
I don't know what this means. Probably, it's nothing of consequence but if it adds almost half a billion to Social Security's baseline, it would mostly undo the effects of sequestration for the Social Security Administration. There is an urgent need for plain language in appropriations legislation.
8 comments:
If rumors are true, SSA was already in a good position to weather sequestration because of a cash slush fund created by Astrue that would preclude the need for furloughs.
The House CR most definitely does not exempt funding for CDRs and redeterminations from sequestration. It exempts them from the much smaller .098% across the board rescission described just a few pages before. The language you cite also does not add any new funding, it just specifies an amount provided last year for technical reasons.
The House CR funds SSA at last year's level and does nothing to address sequestration which would cut their administrative funding well below last year.
(2) SEQUESTRATION REPORTS.—When OMB submits a sequestration
report under section 254(e), (f), or (g) for a fiscal
year, OMB shall calculate, and the sequestration report and
subsequent budgets submitted by the President under section
1105(a) of title 31, United States Code, shall include adjustments
to discretionary spending limits (and those limits as adjusted)
for the fiscal year and each succeeding year through
2002, as follows:
(B) SPECIAL OUTLAY ALLOWANCE.—If, in any fiscal
year, outlays for a category exceed the discretionary spending
limit for that category but new budget authority does
not exceed its limit for that category (after application of
the first step of a sequestration described in subsection
(a)(2), if necessary), the adjustment in outlays for a fiscal
year is the amount of the excess but not to exceed 0.5 percent
of the sum of the adjusted discretionary spending limits
on outlays for that fiscal year.
http://epw.senate.gov/text/envlaws/budget.pdf
SSA should absolutely not be exempt from sequestration cuts, which will provide a long overdue opportunity to trim excess fat in Baltimore and Falls Church.
Nice sentiment, but won't happen--just more field office cuts. With internet access and universasl direct deposit, the 800# is now obsolete, but that won't be cut either. Baltimore is completely sacrosanct--they look out for their own.
We have already been told that furloughs will NOT be necessary, even if this drags on for the rest of the FY. This was stated in a memo the other day. There will be limited OT and a hiring freeze, though...
The House passes a lot of stuff. I will be more interested in what happens with the Senate and if this can once again gets kicked down the road. The CR is not a good thing at all, it is failure.
even without cronyism considerations, 8:27 is right due to what I believe is termed the "firehouse strategy" or some such--
when a governmental agency has its budget cut, it many times chooses to make the cuts in areas that are very visible and detrimental to the public (i.e. closing firehouses) in hopes the people will put pressure on their elected officials and increase the budget. If you trim costs here and there in ways that the public doesn't see (but still hurt the day-to-day operations of the entity), there's zero chance of getting public support for your budget.
Post a Comment