The Social Security Subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee held a hearing yesterday
on antifraud efforts at Social Security. The hearing was more notable
for what didn't happen than what happened. There was no new announcement
of some fraud ring preying upon Social Security. I'm not sure how much
longer Republicans will try to milk the Conn case but they don't have a
new case to talk about.
The agency witness talked about anti-fraud computer systems that Social
Security has installed. Apparently, a fair amount of money and time has
gone into this. However, the agency witness didn't have anything to say
in his written remarks about fraud that had been uncovered using these
systems. Maybe it's too early to expect results from these systems,
maybe Social Security hasn't tried hard enough to make the systems work
or perhaps organized fraud at Social Security is actually quite
uncommon. I think the Republican leadership of the Subcommittee would
really, really, really like for Social Security to uncover lots of
organized fraud since that would be in keeping with their political and
social beliefs. I think they're going to be disappointed. If there is
anything organized, it's probably quite small and more likely involves
Social Security employees than members of the public.
Update: Here's a report from the right wing Washington Times on the hearing. You can sense the disappointment pervading the piece.
Update: Here's a report from the right wing Washington Times on the hearing. You can sense the disappointment pervading the piece.
6 comments:
There is only one logical purpose in the constant drumbeat of claiming "vast" disability fraud: to de legitimize the program and its recipients. Senator Cotten's "Return to Work" bill is predicated on the premise that they CAN. Rand Paul's suggestion that "half (ssi/ssdi) of them are on it because they have anxiety or their back hurts..." is insulting, misleading and either an outright LIE or shows increadible ignorance. I am unaware of these and other "disability fraud" proponents (James Lankford) beating the drums for eliminating other, easier to detect or prevent types of federal government fraud and waste. Such as income tax evasion, government waste on "maintaining" ancient computer systems (80 billion a year), corporations spending millions to "legally" avoid paying taxes, etc. General Electric has nearly one thousand tax lawyers, just to find and exploit loopholes in ovoiding taxes. Do these Senators propose bills to restructure tax laws to make it impossible to ovoid paying taxes for the rich and for large corporations? Do you here them going after Afghan "ghost soldiers" and other fraud? Do you here them complain about ALJs who deny people who are disabled? Do you you here them proposing harsher penalties on government employees who commit fraud? What about doctors that commit Medicare and Medicaid fraud? I don't either.
In regard to the above comment, Timothy Snyder has just written a new short book entitled ON TYRANNY. His second chapter is entitled Defend Institutions. It is an excellent analysis of the deligitimization of democratic institutions. Spot on with your analysis. Resist!
I'd like to see something done about EITC--Earned Income Tax Credit--fraud. Quite a few SSI applicants who say they have never worked come in to file with 4-5 years or more of SEI at about $12000 per year. Some are insured and have been paid, despite never having a business. I know a few folks who are self employed and I don't think any of them have ever "forgot" they were self employed like the SSI applicants frequently do.
I have seen a lot of self-employment showing up on the earnings record that is undeclared too. I thought though that it was often other people using their SSN
@533--unlikely someone is going to pay self employment tax for someone else. There is a sweet spot from about 8-13K, depending on how many kids the person is claiming, where the EITC is the highest amount. They have to pay some SEI tax but the EITC refund is much greater, so basically saying you do hair or sell on ebay can net you $3-4000 a year in tax refunds.
I have seen disabled people declare self-employment to get EITC once, but it usually doesn't keep working. There were some income tax preparation folks that encouraged this, but they got in trouble and the practice slowed up.
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