Status Of Social Security's Appropriations

     The "budget deal" that has already passed in the House of Representatives and should soon be passed by the Senate and signed by the President is only a first step. A "budget" only sets forth a rough framework for the appropriations bills that actually give the Social Security Administration (SSA) and other agencies their operating funds. Social Security's appropriations (technically the Limitation on Administrative Expenditures or LAE) is part of the Labor-HHS appropriations bill. The House Appropriations Committee hasn't even released a draft of a Labor-HHS appropriations bill. The Senate Appropriations Committee's Labor-HHS Subcommittee reported out a bill  several months ago which has not yet been acted upon by the full committee. Here's the Subcommittee's summary of the bill's Social Security provisions:

Social Security Administration Administrative Expenses 

• FY 2013 $11,431 million
• FY 2014 President's Request $11,070 million
• FY 2014 Senate Subcommittee $11,965 million

SSA Program Integrity 

• FY 2013 $756 million
• FY 2014 President's Request $273 million
• FY 2014 Senate Subcommittee $1,197 million

     For the time being, SSA is operating on a Continuing Resolution (CR) at last year's rate. It's difficult for SSA and other agencies to operate under a CR since an agency's need to expend money may not be stable from month to month but the CR allots them the same amount of money each month. More important, SSA and other agencies have difficulty planning for the future. They don't know what to expect. Everybody agrees that CRs are bad but we keep getting them.