Jul 9, 2015

There's No Magic Bullet

     From the written testimony of Paul N. Van de Water, Senior Fellow at the Center of Budget and Policy Priorities, given to the House Ways and Means Committee today:
It’s worth testing some promising changes to DI [Disability Insurance] through carefully designed demonstration projects, but those demonstrations won’t yield quick answers. Congress should also consider other ways of rewarding work for people with impairments, such as expanding refundable tax credits for low-wage workers. But Congress should not expect a magic bullet that will simultaneously trim costs, make beneficiaries better off, and avert the need to replenish the DI trust fund in 2016 and beyond. Beneficiaries will face a 20 percent benefit cut if Congress does not act soon to replenish the trust fund.
     None of the other witness written statements say anything that contradicted Van de Water's statement.
     By the way, let me repeat what I said earlier, the House Ways and Means Committtee's website is a mess. It's almost impossible to find anything. I've been looking at websites of various Congressional committees for years and I've never seen anything like this. You think I'm exaggerating? I didn't give a link to the witness statements at today's hearing. Here's a link to the Homepage for the Committee. The witness statements are there somewhere but try finding them.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

http://waysandmeans.house.gov/event/chairman-ryan-announces-hearing-on-promoting-opportunity-for-disability-insurance-beneficiaries/

Anonymous said...

I notice that even as republicans want to cut the number of people on disability -- they ALL have space on their websites saying my office can help you get checks faster and if there are any problems if you have already applied. They want it both ways. Get more constituents on and get more other people with disabilities off.

Anonymous said...

Knew Van de Water at SSA. He's probably smarter than the other four witnesses combined.